Win Friends, Influence People, Aim for the Brain
by gusstat
Summary: Self-help in the post-apocalypse.  Alternatively, "Everyone is Damaged: How to Persuade People Not to Shoot You In The Head."  Eventually Daryl/Glenn, with side helpings of fluff, angst, gore and squirrels.
1. Chapter 1

He's taken the last watch before morning, walking along the perimeter of the campsite as the sun is just beginning to rise. Winter is coming, he can feel the chill in the air and Daryl doesn't really stop moving much these days. Daryl is not a huge fan of the cold but of course you can't get away from it, not even in goddamn Georgia.

He likes the quiet mornings, before the rest of the group is awake, before they start filling the air with their babble, demands and insults and small kindnesses that leave him bemused and uncomfortable. He also likes watching the sun rise, but wild goddamn dogs couldn't drag an admission of that from him. It isn't for some bullshit pussy reason, anyways, he isn't thinking that it's romantic, or pretty or anything. It's just that the sun rise looks just the same now, after the world's just gone completely to shit, as it did before. It's sort of grounding, helps him remember that not everything about the world has changed, that there are still things out there that aren't absolutely fucked up.

…To be fair, things were kind of fucked up before the end of the world, too.

And then the fucking Chinaman (and Daryl knows he's Korean, and just neveryoumind) decides to fucking sneak up on him, and Daryl almost puts a bolt through his stupid skull before he realizes the geeks don't exactly try to walk quietly.

"Fuckin' dumbass, don't sneak up on me. Fuck's sake," he snarls disgustedly, slinging the crossbow along his back. And Glenn just keeps standing there, looking so damned uncomfortable that Daryl is starting to feel antsy and weird himself. "So what d'you want?"

"I thought. I mean, you're always," he stops for a minute and his eyes flicker to Daryl's sides and his mouth twists in a strange sort of grimace-smile, and Daryl is getting confused and not feeling very goddamn patient with this nonsense. "I… brought this for you," Glenn finally mutters, an awkwardly out-flung arm bridging most of the distance between them.

Daryl hadn't even noticed anything in the kid's hands but there's something, practically being shoved into his chest. Eyes narrowed, he takes the offered bundle – lumpy olive green khaki, heavier than it looks – and unfolds it. "A coat?" he says, honestly confused and instinctively mistrustful.

"Um. It's starting to get cold is all, and I don't think I've ever," another abortive glance, "seen you wear something with sleeves. There was an army surplus place on the way out of town, mostly emptied out, but there was that," hand rubbing ferociously at the back of his neck, Glenn can't seem to stop talking. "There was more useful stuff there, maybe better tents at least, but I didn't want to be there after dark and that would have been too heavy to bring on my own anyways and-"

"Right. Thanks, ch-" Just this once, Daryl catches himself before the epithet can slip out. "Uh, thanks." The big, cheerful grin he gets in answer might just be worth it. And it's kind of not an awful jacket.

* * *

><p>The next night, in the privacy of his tent, Daryl takes a moment to think about the fact that Glenn clearly is a bit of a freak.<p>

Not only is it not an awful jacket – perfect for blending into the brush, pretty warm, and it looks like something he'd wear of his own accord, rather than something that we was resorting to because he was a big whiny bitch about the cold – not only that, but there is all sorts of shit in the pockets. A fire starter and a pair of really nice knives and a compass, so far. Fingerless gloves and a hat.

The two minutes that the kid spent picking them up is probably more time spent giving a shit about Daryl's warmth than anyone else has spent for years, maybe ever. It's weird.

The kid must be out of his goddamn mind. Nobody is that sweet, that thoughtful for nothing. And yeah, there's a bunch of new little things littered around the latest temporary campsite that are probably from the surplus store that aren't just for Daryl, so it isn't like he's the only one who Glenn brought things for, but still. It's strange, and it seems like a lot of thought and effort to put into giving things to the dumb-as-bricks racist redneck, and he doesn't really think any of those fucks really think of him as anything else. So, it's weird.

He drops his hand into the last of the uninvestigated pockets and he'll be damned if there isn't a pack of smokes in there. Not his brand, but who gives a shit? He doesn't even remember asking for smokes on any of the kid's errand-boy outings. So Glenn is clearly a bit of a freak, but really perceptive, and maybe an okay guy.

* * *

><p>Notes: Inspired by k!meme, didn't quite fit the prompt. AU after season one, but things (like Daryl's backstory with Merle) have been appropriated from season 2. Slow, not all that smutty, often awkward DarylGlenn.


	2. Chapter 2

"Morning Daryl. Dehydrated oatmeal or… dehydrated oatmeal?" Carol smiles gently at him from the other side of a cooking fire, with a steaming bowlful already waiting for him.

"Carol," he nods, gruff and mildly uncomfortable with someone seeming genuinely happy to see him (_ain't nobody ever going to care 'bout you except me_). Rick and Shane are off in the woods (and good goddamn riddance), the rest of them are around the centre of the camp, eating together and talking. Daryl perches on a rock by the outside of the circle, a little bit torn. He wants to be closer, wants to be part of them, whatever they are.

But they aren't family, they aren't blood, and they're so damned different. And there's no way to be sure they'd have his back if he needed them, not like real, blood-family. They have no real obligation to him. They left his brother on a rooftop to die in the worst possible way, what's stopping them from doing the same to him, if it'd save their skins? Merle was right. They'd keep him and his brother around until they outlived their usefulness, and then drop them without a second thought. They'd already dropped Merle like so much dog shit.

Probably don't even want to be around him in the first place, thinking they're so much better than him and his brother. Fuck them.

"Everything okay over there?" Of course, that's the nosy old bastard, poking around where he isn't welcome once again. To be fair, he's pretty sure he's just been glaring at his food for a while; maybe it makes sense to be a little concerned.

"Fine," he mutters, digging into his food in the hopes that people will stop looking at him.

"Well, feel like joining us?" He frowns but stands, and Glenn and Carl scoot away from each other to clear him space on their log, so simultaneous it's like they'd rehearsed beforehand. His approach is as wary as if he expected landmines beneath his feet – he's waiting for them to remember that they mostly dislike him – but nothing explodes so he has no choice but to sit between them.

The chatter resumes as soon as he sits, friendly and pointless and pausing every once in a while to try to pull him in. He is monosyllabic all morning, but he laughs with the rest of them when Glenn pours the last of his oatmeal into Lori's lap mid-gesticulation while trying to tell a story about his pre-apocalyptic pizza-delivery days. Glenn stares, expression flickering between guilt and amusement, arm frozen midair.

Daryl laughs even harder when Lori responds by smearing oatmeal across Glenn's cheek, and then everyone freezes as Glenn, retaliating for the laughter, deftly spoons up the last of Lori's breakfast and flicks it at Daryl.

There is a long moment where Daryl pauses, cooling oatmeal sliding down his neck, and he's not quite sure how to respond. There are still enough angry stirrings of resentment left in him that he could explode, and feel completely justified. But. It has been a nice morning. It honestly feels as though these people want him here, are happier with him than without him. So he up-ends his mostly untouched oatmeal (he's never liked the stuff) over Glenn's conveniently hat-free head, and scoots away from him on the log while Glenn is frozen with shock and indignation.

Then the food flinging begins in earnest (it seems nobody likes the oatmeal very much), and Daryl and Carl retreat behind a rock together for a tactical consultation, having reached an agreement to pool their resources. Daryl notices somewhat absently that Glenn is still sitting where he left him, oatmeal dripping from his hair, looking far more gobsmacked than the occasion deserves. Whatever. He and Carl have more important things to do, namely conduct a miniature oatmeal bombardment of Sophia and Carol and Lori, who have banded together and surrounded T-Dog as he begs, breathless with laughter, for mercy.

It is a much better morning than he expected, until Rick and Shane return. Rick just smiles at his son's gleeful laughter and dodges a stray oatmeal-missile, which sails past him and hits Shane square in the forehead. Shane, already looking angry about whatever he and Rick were doing in the woods, just gets angrier. He glares around, berating the lot of them for wasting food and being so damn loud and irresponsible and are they trying to draw Walkers to the camp?

Daryl draws a hand through his hair, smearing more oatmeal than he removes, suddenly feeling sticky and angry, good feelings vanishing as though they'd never even existed.

Shane is at the fire, near Sophia and Carol, and still storming about and scolding the group at large. Sophia looks to be near tears, and Carol has her eyes downcast, fingers twisting together anxiously, shoulders hunched in. That is just about enough. "Hey, asshole, lay off," Daryl snarls, standing abruptly. He manages exactly three steps in their direction before Shane, still holding his shotgun, swings it up to train it on Daryl and everything gets really tense. Daryl stops, back rigid and fingers just itching for his crossbow, but it is sitting a few feet away from him and miraculously oatmeal-free.

"What was that? Wanna say that again?" Daryl really fucking hates it when people point guns at him, and for people that claim to be his friends this happens too fucking often.

Rick is hurrying forward, as are Dale and Glenn, Carol and Lori pulling the kids away. And he's willing to bet just about anything that these fuckers are going to side with the officious, domineering bastard yet a-fucking-gain. Then Rick puts a hand on Shane's arm, pushing down lightly. Shane resists, still bristling, and sneers, "Who're you to tell me what to do, huh? Goddamn good for nothing hick," and despite the gun Daryl takes another step forward, furious beyond reason. And then Glenn is standing between them (in between Daryl and the gun, the absolute idiot) and Rick is pushing harder until Shane is forced to move, and Dale is speaking, "Let's all just calm down, okay," and holding his hands out, placating and peaceable.

Daryl smirks at Shane and stalks off, grabbing his crossbow and heading for the woods. That wasn't quite what he expected, and he wants to be away from people so he can decide if maybe he was wrong.

* * *

><p>Rick catches up with him later, he doesn't really know how long. He hasn't managed to catch anything, hasn't really been trying. His thoughts are too tumultuous for him to realistically concentrate on hunting right now.<p>

Rick eyes Daryl for a moment, frowning, before stepping closer. "You know, you can leave any time," he says, and Daryl's head snaps around to look at him.

Rick's expression is impenetrable, his hands nowhere near his gun and it doesn't feel like a threat, exactly. But it has Daryl's blood pounding so hard he can hear it, roaring and thundering, and it has his stomach twisting in horrible ways. _This_ is what he had been expecting, what he's honestly been waiting for since Merle disappeared. They've finally decided that he's no more use to them, they've gotten tired of having him around like everyone else does, would, if Merle hadn't been looking out for him. They aren't blood, and you can't trust anyone who isn't blood. He's been stupid and weak without Merle, and he's stayed too damn long. He'll be better off on his own, not feeding and protecting all this dead weight. And for what? Holier-than-thou bitches and heavy-handed ex-cops and chinks and niggers, and they don't even care (_ain't nobody ever going to care about you except me, little brother_); they're dropping him like a used rag.

"You finally decided you're better off without me, trying to get rid of me like you got rid of Merle? Well fuck that, I'm gone. I don't need you, and I don't need your bullshit," he growls. "Just see how well you do without me." He turns, walking back towards camp, half-hoping that Rick will try to stop him so that he can punch the man with an entirely clear conscience. After an intolerably long moment of silence, he hears Rick running up behind him.

"What? Wait, that's not it, not what I meant," Daryl slows, just slightly, but doesn't stop and doesn't turn to pay attention as Rick falls into step beside him. He can't help the weight in his chest from letting up just a little bit at those words, though, and it only gets better as Rick continues. "Just, don't feel like you have to stick around, if you want to leave and look for Merle. We're heading farther from Atlanta all the time and I don't want to make you come with us if it's not where you want to be. I know how it feels, being apart from your family."

Daryl pauses, considering, before he relents. "Yeah, I guess you would. Look, I don't know where my brother's gone, and he's too far gone to start looking. But he's alive and he can take care of himself, until I can find him again," Daryl admits, still not letting up on his frown, or looking over. He's still breathing a little too hard, still feels the hot, dangerous rush of anger and adrenaline through his arms and down his spine, and he still doesn't know that he can trust these people.

"Alright then," they walk in silence, although Rick drops a hand to rest on his gun now that it won't be taken as a threat.

"Daryl." Rick stops, brows furrowed. Daryl stops and tenses, listening for the shambling, uneven steps of a walker, but hears nothing. Rick chooses that moment to speak up again, eyes averted and looking uncomfortable. "We aren't trying to get rid of you, you know. And we- I. I appreciate how much you do, keeping us safe and fed. Even if it is mostly squirrels. Which. God, I am really learning to hate the taste of squirrel," he laughs, once. "And. Shane was out of line. So," long deep breath and he looks Daryl straight in the eye, "thank you. I'm sorry for Shane, and I'm sorry for your brother, and thank you."

This is… something. Unexpected. But the good unexpected, finding twenty bucks in the pocket of an old coat, rather than the much more common 'Oh-shit-walkers!' unexpected that Daryl is used to. It's strange and uncomfortably close to talking about feelings, but it makes him want to smile a little. It feels secure, comfortable. Appreciated.

Rick doesn't need to know that. "What, are we gonna hold hands, now? Frolic and sing to the woodland creatures? When'd you grow ovaries, sheriff?"

But the silence that returns afterwards is comfortable. Daryl is smiling, shoulders set loose and easy, walking with a hint of a swagger that had all but disappeared since Merle vanished. He brings down a squirrel before they reach the campsite and smirks broadly at Rick as he pulls his bolt free from the little body. "And this? This's just for you. Ingrate."

* * *

><p>Notes: Squirrels! Next chapter should be a few days.<p> 


	3. Chapter 3

They are getting closer to Fort Banning, but it is taking a long time. There was a unanimous decision after Atlanta and then the CDC, to avoid big cities. And so they putter through small towns and farmland and forest and some occasional marshland. The effort to avoid cities pays off, as they never have to deal with more than a small group of walkers at a time, and mostly they are individual, dazed and starved stragglers rather than the quick, vicious groups that populate the cities.

They fall into a pattern as they travel.

They siphon gas and cannibalise parts from the halted cars flowing out of every centre of population. Since they've started avoiding big cities they've yet to encounter the deadly tableau of gridlock like the one that surrounded Atlanta. The RV continues to break down regularly, and they're forced to repair it so often that Dale openly doubts that much of the original machinery remains under the hood anymore. Andrea actually smiles a little at that, and Dale seems inordinately pleased with himself for hours afterwards. Daryl hunts, and lately makes a concerted effort to bag at least one squirrel whenever he goes out. Rick's glares make it worth any extra effort it might take.

They halt for at least a day whenever they pass by a settlement large enough for a grocery store or a pharmacy to send Glenn in scavenging. They always wait a few miles out from town, as staying too close would rile up the geeks with the scent of food and make Glenn's work even harder.

And it works fine for a few weeks, until all of a sudden it doesn't.

* * *

><p>They've set up camp in a mercifully deserted little cabin, a few miles out from a town so tiny it barely deserves the title. The first night, they gather together inside, maybe celebrating the fact that they're sleeping inside, maybe just relieved that they've made it this far at all.<p>

Carol and Dale are in the kitchen together frying fish that Andrea caught at river nearby that very day, Dale having liberated some spices from god-knows-where and beginning to fancy himself a master chef. The fish, in his defense, is rather tastier than their usual gamey diet of fuzzy woodland creatures, and afterwards, Glenn produces a very large, very expensive-looking bottle of scotch with a sheepish grin.

They eat together, drink together, and sit up for hours afterwards, crowded into the main room of a building that is clearly not meant for more than maybe five or six people. The warmth, the closeness, the smell and noise and feel of being pressed in so close, all of it should have been uncomfortable, but somehow manages to be soothing, reassuring instead.

Daryl starts the night in the corner by a window, watching the road. An hour after the scotch appears he has somehow managed to end up wedged between an arm of the squishy, musty old couch and a drunk, drowsy Glenn, who has proved beyond a doubt (again) that he is incapable of handling alcohol. Daryl himself is just past tipsy, pleasantly warm, head buzzing and very, very aware of the line of heat along his side where he and Glenn are pressed together.

Rick and Dale have volunteered to abstain for the night, and Andrea is curled up in a chair in Daryl's old spot. Shane is in the middle of telling a story from his schooldays with Rick, probably exaggerating quite a lot, from Rick's exasperated grin. But maybe not, as Lori seems torn between smiling fondly at her husband and laughing helplessly at his obvious embarassment. Even Carol seems at ease. And Glenn keeps almost nodding off onto Daryl's shoulder, jerking awake at the last moment.

Daryl is oscillating between amusement and a sort of panicky need to get out of the room, the latter mainly because he keeps catching himself thinking the kid is sort of cute.

But the stories keep coming, cheerful and funny rather than melancholy and nostalgic for once, and the alcohol has yet to run out, and he's feeling pretty good right where he is. His shoulders start cramping up so he spreads his arms along the back of the couch, not tucking Glenn under his arm or anything, not even touching him really, but Glenn shifts thoughtlessly, obligingly, curling in towards Daryl just a bit and it's comfortable.

He tells them about the time he hid poison ivy in amongst his brother's underwear when he was younger, how Merle had been itching for weeks and convinced he had the clap, or crabs – then it turned out that he did, so he never cottoned on to Daryl's trick – and has a few people almost in tears with laughter with an alarmingly accurate impersonation, and manages not to hate any of them too much for what happened to his brother.

He knows how Merle can be. They're blood, no reason for hatred between them, and Merle was still cruel sometimes. These people, some of them soft-hearted or soft-headed, women and cops and chinks and niggers, they were just too different. It made Daryl uneasy, twitchy and suspicious and unpleasant, until he knew them better. Merle had just hated them all, even the ones he wanted to fuck, never bothered to know them at all.

Of course, Merle's always had a lot of hate to go around, and maybe it doesn't all make sense. If Daryl believed all the things Merle said, he would be out somewhere alone with his brother or joined up with more like him, rather than in here with these strange people. And he's starting to think that maybe he prefers it here.

A quiet snore from under his arm (where it had apparently decided to drape around Glenn's shoulders without letting Daryl know) tells him the kid has finally given in. He glances down and smirks at the picture Glenn makes, head propped against Daryl's shoulder and mouth hanging just slightly open. Dale is staring at him, eyebrows raised questioningly, but Daryl ignores him. Old fart can mind his own business, and this isn't it.

Then he hears giggling and a quickly stifled 'aw.'

"I thought Glenn told us to never ever let him drink again," Lori comments slyly when Daryl looks up. His eyes narrow and he tenses, but he doesn't know how to react, doesn't know if he's being accused, or made a fool of, if this is malicious mockery or just friendly teasing. Isn't exactly sure what they'd be teasing him about but. Even the thought that they might be teasing him about being…_that way_ with Glenn is enough to get his hackles up, because he's no fag. He's just...

Just.

He's just sitting here with a man tucked neatly under his arm, whom he often forgets to dislike and occasionally finds attractive.

Daryl stands abruptly, stalks off to his room without a glance for any one of them, and slams the door shut behind him. Hears voices from behind the door, and ignores that too.

He paces, restless. Makes two full circuits of the room, punches a wall and immediately regrets it when he splits his knuckles on the unforgiving wood. Wants to yell, but Carl and Sophia are sleeping nearby. He sinks to the floor instead, drops his head, buries both in his hair and pulls until it hurts, and he focusses on the pain from clenching his fist and from yanking his hair until the angry, panicked haze around his thoughts recedes.

He thinks about the things his brother used to say, the words he used. About how scared he had been the first time he had looked at a boy instead of a girl and felt the same flavour of interest, and how _not wrong_ it had felt. It felt natural, and it would have been so, so easy to slip up.

It used to terrify him when his brother would jokingly call him a pansy, or a bitch, because that was only a step away from fag, and if Merle said that to Daryl, somehow he would just _know_ and that would be it. Daryl was afraid, more than anything that his brother might do in a moment of anger, that Merle would never call him little brother again, because then Daryl would have no one left. And that thought scared him so much that he embraced 'faggot,' and 'queer,' until they barely bothered him more than any of the other words. So much that he didn't look at anyone, the boys or the girls, until all of a sudden they'd become men and women and he was an awkward, wary, cantankerous man rather than a sullen, confused teen, until sex and courtship and everything else happened according to rules Daryl only knew second-hand. Even when Merle was gone Daryl didn't look, because he was afraid he didn't know how.

The way Glenn smiles at him, big and honest and cheerful. How he genuinely cares for people, for Daryl even, without seeming to expect anything in return. He thinks about the charming, devious look in his eyes before he does those stupidly, thoughtlessly selfless things that he does that make Daryl's temples throb just to think of them.

He thinks about how his brother would look, if he ever thought Daryl was… What his brother would say, what he would do.

He thinks about how Glenn makes him feel, lately. Interesting, worthwhile, likeable. Attractive. Like there's someone who wants him around, who would miss him if he were gone, come for him if he needed them.

He hasn't had that since Merle, knowing there's someone who's got his back and trusts him to have theirs. Honestly, hasn't had that since before Merle started acquiring habits and shitty friends like a mutt gathering fleas. He misses his brother, but he isn't really sure he misses the person his brother had been turning into in this brave new world. No matter how absolutely, unshakeably certain he is that his brother'd be looking out for him (and every once in a while, treacherously, he has his doubts), he's not sure that Merle is the kind of guy he'd want around, in a world without rules.

Daryl sits there, only a little bit drunk, hands still curled into loose fists in his hair, and he thinks until he's so tired of it that he crawls into bed and passes out fully clothed. It is not an ideal experience, considering it is the first bed he's slept in since the CDC. Introspection is all just horseshit.

* * *

><p>Notes: This story's falling down pretty hard on the zombie front, huh? Three chapters and minimal gore. But hey, more introspection. Hooray!<p> 


	4. Chapter 4

Daryl wakes up late the next morning, and feels like shit. More precisely, he's pretty sure something has taken a shit in his skull. It is really the only reason he could feel this awful, and have his mouth taste so astonishingly bad. And his hand is a gory mess, split knuckles having bled all over the place and then scabbed disgustingly to the point where he can't really close it all the way. He's an idiot.

Other than the hangovers, the day starts off business as usual; Glenn's long gone before he wakes up. Lori is taking Carol and the children down the nearby stream for laundry and Andrea's with them to fish and Rick to stand guard. Shane is prowling the perimeter of the farm restlessly, Dale and T-Dog sitting atop the RV, watching the road for Glenn or walkers. Daryl, alone in the house, heads into the forest and does not think at all.

The days are getting shorter, and the thought of being in the woods at night alone but for the walkers is enough to give even Daryl the creeps. He leaves the forest earlier than usual, heads straight back to camp, squirrel for Rick be damned. It still feels like he is too late by the time he's done gutting the rabbits and cleaning his arrows, though. The whole group is gathered in the main room inside the house, sitting around the table or on couches or on the floor. All of them except Glenn, which isn't right because the kid is always back by sundown, and it's not more than half an hour off right now.

…Not that Daryl has been paying attention to Glenn's comings and goings.

Much.

He approaches just in time to hear T-Dog asking the essential question, "So, do we go after him?"

"You don't know where he'll be, or whether going looking will help him or stir the walkers up more. He could just be waiting for a herd of them to move on, and more of us would just mess that up. Glenn's clever, he's good at this. If he's not back by morning then we have cause to be worried," Andrea says. Though this is more than she has spoken at once in weeks, since the CDC, there remains an air of apathy about everything she says, and it makes Daryl bristle. She's a liability like this; if you're living, then damned well live and if you don't want to feel free to die. Self-pity and apathy will get her killed and that's her business, but she's going to bring them with her if she stays with them, and he's not got enough sympathy for her to let her do that.

Lori seems to take issue with it, too. "Glenn's barely more than a kid. Sure, he's good at getting in and out safe, but he doesn't know this place like he knew Atlanta, and all he's got is one little gun, and who knows what could be happening. He might need help and waiting 'til morning could mean he dies. He's only been out after dark once before, and that was," she trails off, looking to Rick.

He steps up from beside her chair to address the group. "He saved me when I needed him; my vote is for going after him right now. We don't know what's happening out there, but he shouldn't have to deal with it alone."

"It's stupid that he's still going in alone. Should be two, and it'd help if at least one of them could shoot for shit," Daryl contributes. "I'll come. Not too many more, it'd just attract geeks." Andrea chooses this moment to perk up, and Rick opens his mouth but Daryl beats him to it. Thinking of something tactful to say takes Rick a while, and Daryl doesn't bother. "Not you. You can't shoot, and I ain't trusting someone with a death wish at my back."

That leads to some awkward silence, but Daryl is unrepentant. They were all thinking it; he's just the only one with the balls to say it. And hell, her glaring at him is more animated than she's been in weeks. Now things have been decided and he wants to be leaving already. He feels like there are ants crawling up and down his spine, little feet aflame and burning and he just needs to go. Now.

Shane steps forward, "Well, I'll come then. If we're going it has to be now, before the sun sets completely."

Daryl has never liked Shane as much as he does in that moment.

* * *

><p>They park the pickup truck next to the car Glenn took, half a mile from the centre of town, and walk the rest of the way. The sun is setting by the time they reach what could be called downtown, if you were using the word frivolously. It's a tiny little town, barely more than a truck-stop along a meandering country road. Houses, shops and a Wal-Mart line the main road, more houses spreading out along the side streets that extend out from the main street.<p>

There are few enough walkers that they probably could have brought the car in much closer without too much trouble. Quiet and careful and on foot, they draw even less attention. Despite that, to a man they have fierce, white-knuckled grips on their weapons of choice. Cities aren't safe any longer – too confined, too easy to get trapped somewhere, nowhere to run and too many places for walkers to lie in wait, looking just like the true dead. Even a place as small as this one is uneasy, the decay and abandon plus the constant threat giving the place an air of menace. The shifting, deceptive dusk-light does not help.

The only large congregation is a group of them pushing insistently against the glass doors to the Wal-Mart. "There?" Rick asks, terse and quiet.

"Makes the most sense. There'd be all sorts of shit in there, no need to check a lot of stores, quickest in and out," Shane mutters. "Of course, there're also plenty of places for walkers to hide. Probably got ambushed in there, had to hole up or run."

"We'll check here first then. If he isn't there…" Rick grimaces, trails off.

"Wasting daylight, ladies. We get in, find him and then we can get the hell out of here," Daryl says, keen to be moving and not interested in anymore pointless fatalism. And hey, it's Wal-Mart. If he's real lucky, there might just be some new arrows for the crossbow, or even a real pillow that isn't a wadded up shirt.

It's funny, the things you miss.

* * *

><p>After a short, fierce argument over the relative merits of storming the front door or braving the darkening side-streets for a back entrance, they creep around back to the staff entrance. Only a pair of aimless walkers and Daryl is shooting one (before Rick or Shane have even noticed them he notes smugly) and Shane rushes the other and crushes its skull with his axe. Daryl thinks that maybe he should be concerned at how satisfying that heavy, wet -<em>thunk- <em>feels, even vicariously.

Rick opens the door cautiously, shines a light into the darkened interior, then holds the door open and motions the others inside. Inside is alarmingly dark, and silent. That could be taken as good news, as they aren't hearing the sickening dragging and scraping of a moving geek, aren't hearing screaming or pleas for help, but it could just as easily mean that the geeks are waiting in the darkness, could mean they've already gotten to Glenn, could mean the other man isn't here at all. And for a store in a tiny little town, the damnable Wal-Mart is pretty big to be searching without even second-hand daylight on their side, when it is too dangerous to shout into the darkness.

They start searching, quick and quiet, but it isn't looking good. The shelves look mostly picked clean of the useful things, and elsewhere covered in the now-familiar tessellations of blood and shocks of gore. There is the smell of the walkers, invasive and nauseating, but that permeates everything, can't trace walkers just by the stench because it's so strong you'd think they were everywhere all the time. No bodies, though, and no walkers.

Until Shane bites off a curse hurriedly in the darkness to Daryl's left, just as Daryl is surreptitiously eyeing the bedding area. He turns.

He sees the ragged, decaying forms, more than one. Registers the crouched pose, lit unforgivingly by a flashlight held in a thankfully steady hand, and he knows but does not acknowledge what it means. Notes the blood flowing on the floor around them, bright and red and _fresh_. He sees these things in a quick, disjointed series of eternities, a set of unending, unconnected moments, seen but not quite assimilated or processed for underlying meaning.

Daryl does not think.

An arrow appears in the back of one of the geeks' heads, and Daryl has no connection to the arms that fired the crossbow, no control over the body that is even now moving towards the crouching figures. He feels his arms going through the accustomed motions as he watches it drop, hideous and ungainly even in dying (again). The next falls. He thinks that someone is speaking to him, harsh and insistent but they can't yell and they'd need to yell for him to hear them over a sudden pounding in his ears. Then there are rushed footfalls behind him, too regular for a walker so he doesn't care. He kicks the next one, hard, where its guts would be if its abdomen weren't gaping open. His boot impacts something, ruptures something, there is a rush of fluids and the walker-stench that pervades the place intensifies. But he's already shot it and Shane is taking care of the last and the smell is secondary to him wondering desperately whether he'll be able to look at the… the body, the victim, the-

Dog?

Dog. The thought, the word, is almost a thankful little prayer. Not-Glenn.

Could be a coyote, maybe. Too big for a fox, on the big side for a dog or coyote, but the fur definitely means that it wasn't human. Too small, wrong size to be even a human child.

He breathes again. Feels guilty at his relief after finding that it was a dog. He's always liked dogs. But, the alternative.

"Daryl?" Rick says, quietly. He's still a few feet back, pistol up and flashlight beam flitting about in the darkness. "Dog," Daryl answers him, hoping that his relief doesn't leak into his voice. He's already moving, leaving the bolts behind in his need to get away from what could have been, when Rick steps forward to check for himself. He's already halfway to a new aisle when he hears the shaky huff that's almost laughter, which means that Rick's seen it, that it's not-Glenn. Daryl is so focussed on ignoring the strange, weak-in-the-knees feeling of relief that he almost doesn't hear it.

Too small, too quiet to be a walker. Doesn't sound human, though. He signals Rick and Shane behind him, creeps towards where the faint noise has come from, and then-

"Hello?"

"Glenn!" Rick is rushing forward, seemingly careless but he's still got the gun out.

Just in case.

Daryl follows, jaw clenched and knuckles white with the thought. Just in case.

"Oh thank god! Rick," he exclaims, quiet in spite of his obvious, almost teary-eyed relief. "What'd I tell you? I rescue hapless idiot in Atlanta, and here you are, saving me from… Wal-Mart zombies. Huh. Very Romero, consumer-horde," Glenn babbles, tension leaking out of him in inanities. Daryl, silent, looks him over intently. Eyes covering dirty hat over messy hair covering worried eyes down to mobile mouth along unmarked throat to unstained t-shirt stretched over tense shoulders curling in slightly towards – blood. "You're bleeding." He says it flatly, chest tight, voice even. Just in case, god help him.

A breathy, humourless laugh and Glenn hikes his shirt up. "Just caught myself on something. Running. I'm an idiot, but I'm not fucked. Yet, at least," and it's a cut. Clean, for a given value of the word. Clearly not the work of decaying teeth or rotten nails and Daryl can breathe, can relax the grip that had had him losing feeling in his fingers.

"Well that's just dandy then. What th' hell kept you, short-round?"

Glenn laughs again, less bleak this time. "You're never gonna let me live this down I just know it. But I couldn't leave them behind, not after," he trails off and turns to walk deeper into the store, looking back when they don't follow and beckoning impatiently. "Look, I'm just going to have to show you. ...And he was an irritating, obnoxiously useless little racist caricature. I am not that annoying. Asshole."

Daryl, the first to follow and walking the closest, is the only one to catch the tail end of Glenn's commentary. Bemused for a moment, he finally makes the connection, and his short bark of laughter startles them both. "Sure y'are. Why else would I call you that?"

Glenn turns just enough to flash him the finger, and a smirk.

"What've you done this time, kid? This is the second time we've had to rescue your damsel-ass, y'know," Shane calls out from the rear. When he sees the kid's shoulders knot a little harder with tension and knows that it'll only get worse if he decides to pick a fight Daryl, uncharacteristically, bites down on the urge to remind the asshole that he wasn't even there, that the first time was nowhere near Glenn's fault, and maybe to keep his stupid tongue inside his mouth instead of flapping out in the breeze where someone might _cut it off_. He thinks it real hard, though, and figures if Shane's skull wasn't so goddamn thick he'd probably hear it.

Glenn leads them into what was probably once the manager's office. The only window had been securely boarded across, and the door and walls and windows look unexpectedly secure for a commercial store. It looks as though someone has been living in the office; candles and a hardened mess of dried wax in a corner of the desk, piles of unopened canned food and water bottles, a few books, lots of flashlights, a mattress covered in a snarl of tangled bedding, the size of which suggests it could accommodate more than one person, though the rest of the room screams solitary survivor.

And bones. Gnawed-upon bones.

Each man notices the bones, and is turning to give Glenn a horrified stare, when something shifts in the bedding pile. Too small for it to possibly be human, and three weapons swing towards it, but Glenn dives forward protectively. Daryl almost swallows his tongue, swears to himself that he is going to have a good long talk with Glenn later about throwing himself in front of guns and-

And then whatever he'd been thinking briefly deserts him as he tries to explain what has just happened in front of him. Glenn appears to have sprouted _puppies_.

* * *

><p>Notes: That's right. Puppies. I'm doing that. Also, rating is going to an M. Not for sexytimes, just some gore, etc.<p> 


	5. Chapter 5

"I was leaving the pharmacy, everything was fine, and by the way it is crazy how well stocked a Wal-Mart pharmacy is. Anyway, there was a gunshot, and another and another, and then he started screaming," Glenn's voice is quiet, wavers at the difficult points, but he plows forward. "I was pretty sure I was too late but I ran for him anyways, because there was a chance, you know? But I wasn't quick enough, got there just in time to see them, uh, finish with. Well. Someone. I couldn't really tell… Anything." He closes his eyes for a second, then a dog squirms in his lap and he comes back to himself.

"I was ready to turn around and leave, really quick and quiet, they were too worked up after having eaten, but then I heard barking. It sounded so. God, it was terrible. I just- I had to. So I followed the barking, to here, just a little bit outside the office.

The dog was trying to fight off this walker, but it'd already got- I think it had one of them already, I think there was something in its hands and she just, went crazy. And then another one showed up and the-" he looks away, swallows hard and blinks a few times. "They were eating her. I couldn't- The _noises_ she was making- And then I realized there were puppies, and- I shot her, I had to, and them too, and then I had to run for the office and block myself inside. I was going to wait until the geeks lost interest and then find a way out. Then I saw them. And I couldn't bring them with me, not by myself, but. I couldn't leave them either. Not after that, knowing what they'd," he stops talking, suddenly looks really young, and as though he's about to burst into tears.

"Jesus, Glenn. That's awful," Rick sympathises. He is watching the hallway as Shane wedges the door shut, and neither is looking over to notice Glenn's distress. Daryl crouches down next to him. Glenn looks over, eyes glassy, scowling and blinking hard, just daring Daryl to make fun.

He nods at him, just once, reaches out and squeezes his shoulder. Glenn gives him a watery smile, diluted by the sadness but a smile and that's enough. "Let's see 'em, then," Daryl says gruffly, reaching out to pluck a dog from where they'd piled into and around Glenn's lap and mostly fallen asleep. It isn't quite fit-in-one-hand small, but it is pretty damn small, and clearly exhausted. He smiles despite himself as it wakes up when he lifts it, blinks at him and bites his finger. Right then Daryl decides he likes this dog, scratches it gently along the back. Glenn, watching, snickers and Daryl has to clamp down on the frankly retarded urge to stick his tongue out.

Shane walks closer almost hesitantly, drops to his knees unceremoniously in front to Glenn. Picks up a dog and brings it up close to his face with a smile and it licks him right on his big, freaky nose and you can _see_ him fall in love with it, face going soft and open and unexpectedly handsome. Daryl blinks. Frowns. Shakes his head sharply until the thought goes away.

Thank fucking god for the small mercies, at least.

"I- I don't even like dogs," Glenn confesses. He's sitting cross-legged on the pile of bedding, one dog lying across his lap, petting the other where it is curled up next to him. It is a fairly ridiculous thing to say, all things considered. Daryl, still scratching the fuzzy little creature that's sprawled trustingly across his thighs, just quirks his brow skeptically. Glenn catches his look and laughs weakly.

"Okay, I guess that's not really true. They seem to like me, and, and I like them too. But I don't know the first thing about dogs, I've never had one. I just couldn't let the geeks get them. I couldn't. And I thought, maybe it'd be good if the kids had something to think about, you know, something to take care of, be happy about. And." He swallows, lowers his voice until it's barely audible, and looks at the floor. "Um. You said you missed your dog. So I thought of you, too, I guess."

Well. Shit. "What, little ole me?" he says it teasingly, adds some extra twang for effect, but he's surprised and a little flattered. He had mentioned the dog a while ago, the night they stayed at the CDC.

* * *

><p>He had been in the dining room with Glenn and T-Dog well after the rest had gone off, probably to screw each other, or to drink and cry alone in their rooms. Daryl is uncharitably certain that that is all the fuckers do when they're not busy running for their lives.<p>

Daryl had been imagining Merle's head exploding if he'd walked into the room at that moment, his little brother sitting around drinking and laughing in such mixed company.

T-Dog, rapidly approaching maudlin drunk, started off on how he missed his girlfriend. Daryl, who had been in a surprisingly good mood for once, had half a mind to toss his bottle at him for bringing bitching into it. He had, in fact, threated to do just that before Glenn took the bottle from him and downed way more than was wise, and both Daryl and T-Dog had had to cheer him on (or jeer, in Daryl's case) when he slammed it down afterwards, coughing furiously.

Then, he said that he missed his grandmother. He hadn't been too good with his parents, but the old lady was apparently something else. He doesn't know what happened to her, when the world ended. He misses her cooking, and the way her house would always smell a little bit like jasmine. Daryl had told himself firmly (and _probably_ not out loud) that he was a pussy for wanting to tell the chink that he was sorry for his grandmother, and to just keep his damn fool tongue inside his damn fool head until they stop talking about this.

They'd both glanced to where Daryl sits on the table, one leg drawn up to his chest, and he glared back. Informed them they were both giant moaning bitches and that he wasn't going to oblige them by growing tits, thank you very much. They had turned away, T-Dog first and then Glenn after some hesitation.

When neither was looking at him, he'd sighed. Dropped his head back to look at the ceiling. "My dog," he said, still staring striaght up. Easier to talk if he pretends there's no one there. "Big, mean old bastard. Some Rottweiler in him, mostly mutt. Wouldn't let anyone touch him, not even Merle. Almost bit his hand clean off once." He laughed, almost fondly. "But he took to me. If I'da let him, he'da slept in my bed with me. Dog was loyal as, well, as a dog. Wagged his tail like a puppy for me," and then his throat started getting tight and he'd shut up. It could have ended there but Glenn asked him what happened to the dog, and his voice was so much closer that Daryl had had to look down to check where he was. He'd caught Glenn's eye, and then had a bit of trouble looking away. And for whatever reason, he had answered the question.

"When I wised up to what was going on with the geeks, about the biting, I knew he was fucked, poor bastard. He bit things that he didn't like, and he didn' really like anything but me, and I wouldn' let him turn into them. I didn't know if it happened to dogs, but I wasn' taking the chance.

Lived way out from town; I had some time before the real crazy showed up. So I let him sleep on my bed that night. Next day I took him out to the woods. Let him run wild. Gave him his favourite food. And I shot him. Left to go get Merle and get the fuck out of there that same day."

He and Glenn were still sharing that strange, intense look, and Daryl was horrified to feel a hot stinging in his eyes, promising salty humiliation if he stuck around. He had snarled, cursed, and shoved himself off the table. He was attempting to storm out when Glenn put his hands on Daryl's shoulders, said I'm sorry you had to do it. T-Dog added in, that's really awful. He may even have allowed Glenn a quick, heartfelt hug before retreating hastily to his room.

* * *

><p>He hadn't even thought that Glenn remembered then night; he'd had enough to drink that if he were the forgetting type it would be gone, and apparently the mother of all hangovers to prove it. That he bothered to remember is a little flattering. Daryl can feel the back of his neck getting hot; can feel the corners of his lips curling up. But he is also acutely aware of the other two men in the room.<p>

So he looks at the dogs instead. They've got German Shepherd colouring but they could easily be mutts, it's too early to be sure. They look maybe seven or eight weeks old. They're smaller than they should be, a little underfed, but not starving. The comically oversized paws, like dinner plates at the end of sweetly fuzzy limbs, hint at a lot of growth to come, and the one in his arms is waking up and looking lively and clever.

They've got a pretty good chance at survival, Daryl decides. He is completely unaffected by the gutsy little creature currently attacking a dangling thread from his shirt. Completely uninfluenced. One look at Shane, clearly won over completely, says he has reached the same conclusion.

Rick is still by the door, uneasy and antsy to be back. He can't stop thinking about the last time he left the group all alone to go retrieve somebody. But he's really not sure about the dogs. "Look, I don't know about this. I love dogs as much as the next guy," Daryl watches Glenn curl over the dogs protectively as Rick continues, "And full-grown dogs? I'd love to have one around. But puppies?"

He sees Glenn, almost heartbroken and Daryl already bristling before Rick can suggest anything. He looks at Shane, with an honest, happy, uncomplicated smile for the first time in weeks and the sight of it has him crumbling like a cheap pastry. The rest of his objections die on his lips. Even the one about zombie dogs, and how truly goddamn horrific that would be.

The dogs are coming with them. But there are going to be some serious rules about this, damnit. And if he's really lucky people will listen to one in ten of those rules. He sighs. "So, dogs are coming with us, then. Glenn, you have the stuff you came for?"

"Yeah, it's all in there," Glenn jerks his head towards his backpack, not quite relaxing yet.

"Okay. We can't risk them running off and bringing walkers down on us; we'll have to carry them. I'll carry that; the dogs go in Shane's bag, Glenn, can you carry them? I need the rest of us to have free hands," Glenn gives him a quick nod and Shane slides his bag over. The bag is big, meant to be slung over a shoulder, and once they are done Glenn dissolves into helpless laughter at the sight of four irritated heads and assorted paws peeking out from the zippered opening. But none of the dogs are whimpering or in pain, and they really need to get going so it will have to do.

"We parked next to you, we just need to get out there. If we get split up I'm with Shane, Daryl you're with Glenn. We head for the cars, and wait there until dawn, and then head back to camp. Alright? Let's get gone, then."

Getting out of the Wal-Mart turns out to be easy, leaving through the staff entrance since there are still walkers pressing their horrible rotting faces to the front windows. Getting out of the alley that leads to it is going to be harder, as it has filled up with walkers.

"Fuck!" Glenn yelps, just as Rick is yelling "Run!" They don't really need the encouragement. Shane takes off down the alley, the opposite direction from where they need to be but that is a concern to be considered when there are ravenous zombies beginning to pay attention. Rick and Daryl are hard on his heels, but Glenn's got the dogs and he's being too careful with them, not moving fast enough. Daryl glances back and he's losing ground. Not much, still several yards ahead of the shambling mass and they won't catch him right away, but if this turns into a real pursuit Glenn is screwed because Daryl knows, just _knows_ that Glenn isn't going to let the dogs go when they're too slow to escape on their own.

He struggles with himself for a long moment, the pounding of running feet and the rasp of harsh breaths making the world seem so simple, the darkness turning it into a moment from a nightmare, a scenario straight from the hindbrain. Black and white, do or die. It would be easy, completely forgivable, to just keep running and let the kid take care of himself. Daryl knows Glenn's completely capable of it, that if it came right down to a real do or die moment Glenn would do what he had to rather than give in. Daryl likes that about him.

But. It would kill something in him to have to let those damn dogs die, and it would probably be one of those somethings that Daryl likes about Glenn.

Shit.

"Shit," he mutters, partly because it bears repeating and partly because he is a little astonished at his own idiocy. They skid around a corner into a residential area and he figures this is the best chance he is going to get; the geeks might not see them duck inside a building, if he's quick and lucky. Because he's lucky all the fucking time. Shit. "Go on ahead, draw them off," he pitches his voice for the two men just ahead of him. "We'll catch up." Rick looks over his shoulder at him, confusion writ plain on his face. Then he sees Glenn, holding the bag steady and slowly falling behind, and nods, grabs Shane and slows right down.

"Understood. We'll bring 'em after us, meet you by the cars," Rick stops, catching his breath and getting ready to run again when the geeks round the corner.

Before he can talk himself out of it Daryl slams a shoulder into a likely-looking wooden back door leading into a house that looks mostly intact and structurally sound. It gives too much under his weight and he's afraid for a moment that it will break completely rather than breaking the lock. But the door gives and the wood stays solid. As Glenn catches them up and skids to a halt, Daryl grabs him by the collar and yanks him into the doorway. "Good luck," Rick says, low and urgent, and slams the door as the distinctive wet, scraping of the geeks' footsteps get closer.

Which leaves Daryl standing in the doorway, one hand on his crossbow and the other full of Glenn's shirt. Glenn, who is panting and confused and holding an armful of squirming, agitated dog. The wide-eyed staring gets old pretty quick, right about the same time that Daryl realizes that this close to the door the walkers can probably still smell them. And that it is stunningly stupid not to have checked the place for walkers.

He lets go of the kid's shirt, steps back, looks away. Stalks off in the direction of the stairs, throws back over his shoulder, "Make sure the ground floor is clear. Yell if it's more'n you can kill on your own." He's pissed with Glenn and the dogs and the walkers for making him do this idiotic thing, and Rick and Shane for letting him. And himself, if he's being honest. But fuck honesty. Honesty is for the kind of idiotic, sentimental twats that run around risking their lives saving puppies. _Puppies_, for god's sake.

…Of course, that'd be Daryl as well as Glenn, or else he wouldn't be holed up in a shitty little house in Buttfuck, Nowhere, hiding with a soft-hearted chink and a bucketful of dogs and a hoard of undead hungry, hungry hippos outside the door. Fuck's sake. _Puppies. _Daryl might as well start wearing a little rainbow flag like a motherfucking cape, it'd be about as subtle.

* * *

><p>Note: As I have it planned, this should end around fifteen chapters. They're getting away from me a bit, though, and the next part in particular is being difficult, so I'm ending it on that weird mental image.<p> 


	6. Chapter 6

The upper floor is free and clear, and unexpectedly clean.

He ransacks the place almost absentmindedly, but whoever lived there had cleared the place out, or some very neat scavengers have already been through, and there is nothing immediately useful.

He leaves the biggest bedroom but hesitates by the door. He walks back to the bed, checks over his shoulder almost guiltily, grabs a pillow from the bed and stuffs it into his backpack quickly. Returning to the main floor he is defiant, daring Glenn to say a word.

About what, Glenn isn't quite sure. "This floor is clear," is all he risks.

Daryl edges up to a window, careful to get a view of the street without making himself visible, scans the alleyway behind the house. It is blessedly walker-free aside from a few stragglers, probably chasing after Rick and Shane. A cursory check of the front window tells him it'd be best to take the back alley when they leave – the front streets feature a few too many walkers and what look like collapsed buildings, though it's hard to tell in the dark. It's going to be a while before they can leave.

They've got at least a half-hour wait ahead of them, and it's a long walk back to the cars after running hard in the wrong direction, and Daryl is dead tired. It's been a long, awful day. If he didn't know any better he'd think he was still hung over.

Glenn is sitting against a wall with his arms curled around himself, out of sight of the windows, with the doggy bag set by his side. The little nuisances are once again asleep, although how they manage it in such a confined setting and after such a stressful day is beyond Daryl.

"So. That was fun, huh?" Glenn tries, half-heartedly, to break the silence.

Daryl grins, "You're a weirdo, you know that?" He sets the crossbow on the floor in easy reach and then tosses himself onto the leather sofa. It gives just the right amount, still smells decadent and leathery, and he lets out a long, contented sigh, almost a moan. After a moment of blissful wriggling that Daryl would under no circumstances admit to, he dangles his head off the side of the sofa and twists to regard Glenn.

Upside down. So he's feeling a little bit buzzed and surreal right now. Fuck off.

There's something wrong with Glenn, obvious even from Daryl's atypical observation point. He screws up his eyes and stares intently at Glenn, even going so far as to turn back upright.

It's in the way he's sitting, hunched in on himself, tension standing out more than it should during this brief respite. Curled around his abdomen as if… "Aw, shit," he curses, sudden and loud. Glenn flinches, head shooting up to look for trouble, and the sudden movement makes him wince. This visual confirmation that they're both idiots only serves to irritate Daryl further.

"Forgot you're wounded. And why'd you keep quiet about it? Normally couldn't get you to shut your mouth for love or money," he grumbles, hauling himself upright. When he catches the half-hearted smirk, he adds, "And I ain't offering either. But why wreck a good thing now – keep your trap shut for a while, would'ja?"

"Just for you, asshole," Glenn manages. He's still panting and keyed-up from the recent flight from the walkers, and exhausted. The cut across his ribs is throbbing in time with his pulse, a steady searing burn along his abdomen. Running, every movement seeming to tear the gash open wider, every jolt seeming to wrench in new and inventively painful ways, had not been a wise move on his part. And now he's starting to feel faint and nauseous and the room is spinning a bit. "I, ah. I think I might've lost a bit of blood," he says, to Daryl's alarm.

He edges in closer, reaches in to bat the kid's hands out of the way and peel up his shirt to assess the damage. There's a fair bit of it. The gash, while it doesn't look to have damaged anything essential, is still bleeding sluggishly. Probably because Glenn's been running around with the damn thing. The whole area is covered in fresh, angry bruising. And while Glenn certainly isn't the dirtiest person in camp (though, Daryl himself is in the running at this point) there is enough grime on his skin and clothes to make infection a real possibility.

"Just what we fuckin' need," Daryl mutters to himself. "Why'nt you say anything, you goddamn idiot?" he says louder, for Glenn's benefit.

Glenn has to make a visible effort to focus, and Daryl viciously squashes down the gnawing feeling of wretched, useless concern and sympathy in his chest. It's useless, and it'd probably be unwelcome even if he did feel like expressing it. Which he does not. "Uh. We were a little busy. And I've nothing to clean it with now, Rick's got m'bag." The slurring concerns Daryl some, as does the haziness. Not good signs. How much fucking blood has the kid lost, he wonders desperately. And what is he supposed to do about it here, in a house that's already been picked over, with hardly anything useful on him, surrounded by geeks?

And, he thinks with a hot spike of irritation, fuck Rick for taking the bag with the supplies and medicine in it. He and Shane had seen that Glenn was injured too. This isn't just on Daryl. "Fuckin' clumsy chink, what'm I supposed to do about this?" It's when Glenn doesn't immediately clarify that he is 'Korean-alright-you-stupid-hick' that Daryl gets honestly scared.

He needs to clean the gash as best he can, get some antiseptic or something on it, wrap it, feed the kid and get some antibiotics in him for good measure. Needs to get both of them, and a sack-full of fuckin' puppies, through a geek-infested town back to safe haven, where he can rip Rick a new one for leaving him with the injured bastard and the useless dogs, Glenn for being so goddamn stupid (and earnest and goodhearted and, just, goddamn stupid), and Shane just for being Shane. Fucking assholes, the lot of them.

He thinks as long as he can stay angry, he can avoid getting afraid for the kid's sake. Fear will do good for exactly no one right now, and Daryl Dixon is a lot of things, but useless is not one of them.

He rummages in Shane's bag, hoping that there'll be at least some of what he needs – clean water, antiseptic, antibiotics from what he can't help but think of as 'Merle's Clap Stash'. No such luck, of course, nothing more useful than a bottle of water. Still, better than nothing. He crouches in front of the kid who is all but passing out. That won't do.

He takes both of Glenn's shoulders, gives him a solid shake until the kid is glaring at him. "Glenn. Glenn! Look here. Look right here. Recognize me?" He waits until he gets a nod and mumbled confirmation. "Good. So just remember, if you faint on me like a sweet little princess, I will _never_ let you live that down. Got it?" Another nod, more mumbling. Goddamnit. "I'll be right back. Don't go anywhere now," he says, squeezing Glenn's shoulder again before standing.

Upstairs he yanks the nice, clean sheets from the bed, hauls the whole bundle back down and dumps it. He cuts it into a few long strips, stopping periodically to irritate Glenn into paying attention. He's cleaning his hands and really not looking forward to the next bit, with the actual touching. "Hey. Hey, princess. What'd I say about nodding off?"

"Fuck you, you redneck dickhead," Glenn glares. "M'not passing out, okay."

He shifts a little closer. "That's more like it, princess. Gotta clean out your stupid paper cut now. Gonna be okay?"

Glenn raises one arm and lifts his middle finger; Daryl snorts. He figures that's probably as good as a yes. "Walkers outside. So if you're a screamer, now's the time to share," he continues with a thoughtless double entendre. Too late to retract the words, and too late to stop himself imagining. He grits his teeth and does his level best to ignore the mental images, his own blushing, and the smirk Glenn is sure to be sporting.

"Hah," Glenn laughs, sounding pained but making an effort. "Wouldn't you like to know," he mutters. "Just do it, it's fine." He looks away, clenches his jaw and balls his fists.

Daryl pushes his shirt a little higher on his torso and starts cleaning, water and cut out pieces of bed sheet coming away grimy and bloodstained. He notes, absently, the way the muscles flutter and contract in Glenn's stomach, listens to Glenn's harsh breathing, the only sound in the room bar an occasional snuffle from the dog bag.

Cleaned, the cut looks much less alarming, though goddamn painful. It has mostly stopped bleeding in the interim, which is a relief except that without the immediate urgency of a gushing wound, Daryl is free to think of non-emergency things, while he is still crouched over Glenn, hands still full of smooth bare skin.

Cleaned, Glenn is starting to look quite tempting. Daryl is taking in the lines of his body and having some slight trouble looking away, when his hindbrain suggests pressing his nose to clean skin and inhaling deeply, followed up immediately by licking a long stripe up the lean torso. He swallows hard when it helpfully supplies a picture, too. Glenn tenses again, whimpers quietly, and Daryl clenches his jaw. "Almost done," he says, drifting the back of his knuckles along Glenn's side, thoughtlessly comforting, and looks up. Glenn has dropped his head back, neck stretched and hard with tension, fists clenched tightly at his sides, breathing quick and shallow. And Daryl, god help him, wants to make it all better. He swallows.

He wraps Glenn's midsection with strips of bed sheet, ties them off gentler than he would have been for Merle and definitely without the harsh finishing jerk that Merle would have finished with. "There ya go," he says, just barely resisting the idiotic urge to pat the wounded area in demonstration ("see, I fixed it!").

His nigh-constant discomfort with others is making itself known again as he remains there, kneeling before the kid with his shirt still hiked up high on his chest. Glenn says nothing, and the longer the silence stretches on the more sickly certain Daryl becomes that his interest is clear on his face, and that Glenn is disgusted.

He draws back, pulling defensive walls up around the soft, (weak) vulnerable feelings of care and yearning, feelings that would make him feel antsy and exposed at the best of times. He looks away and starts drawing back, but freezes at Glenn's hand on his arm.

"Thank you," he says, and Daryl looks back at him. Glenn's smile is arresting, enough that he doesn't notice Glenn moving until there is a hand on the side of his face, fingertips resting along his jaw. He watches Glenn lick his lips and feels a flush spread along the back of his neck and across his face.

He tries to pull his eyes back up to meet Glenn's, smiles uncertainly, "It, ah, it was nothing." Normally he would step back, look away, scrape his hand along the back of his neck to banish the heat lingering there. But Glenn's hand is still resting along the side of his face, warm and compelling. He leans in without thinking, bracing his arm on the wall above Glenn's head, drifting closer. Glenn smiles up at him and his other hand slides up Daryl's arm, drawing heat in its wake that spreads all over Daryl. Then Glenn tries to sit forward he and winces and Daryl, certain that he has done something wrong, backs right off, Glenn's hands falling from him. "Y'alright?"

"Fine. Fine, just pulled on my," he rests a hand over his bandaged side. Glenn looks away, suddenly uncertain himself.

Daryl decides maybe Glenn was making a mistake, while his thoughts were hazy from pain and exhaustion. He's probably relieved that he came to his senses when he did.

Daryl, who has no such excuse, suddenly regrets not acting when he had the chance. Then he feels ashamed and guilty at his urge to take advantage, and then humiliated and angry that he would have been no more than a mistake to Glenn, something to be ashamed of. It's all too much to deal with, and Daryl is too out of practice with his own emotions to be bothered with it.

He looks away before he speaks, voice tight. "Yeah. Right. Well, we," he checks the window, notes that not only is the street clear, but the sun is rising. "We should get going." He hoists his crossbow, really ready to just get fucking gone already.

"Okay." Glenn stands, gingerly, arm around his middle, and turns to the still-sleeping dogs, reaching out to lift the bag.

Daryl takes one look at Glenn and shakes his head. "Nah, that's not gonna work." Glenn glances at him warily and Daryl's chest clenches unpleasantly at the look, one ha hasn't seen from Glenn in weeks. He pushes Glenn aside and drapes the dog bag across his own shoulder, settling it and adjusting his hold on the crossbow to compensate. It's awkward, but with luck he won't be carrying it long.

"Oh. That's what you meant. Okay. Okay. Let's go," Glenn says, looking down.

Daryl furrows his brows, shoulders the door open. They're both of them hobbled, Glenn by injury and exhaustion, Daryl by the burden he's carrying. The walk back is walker-free, but the tension in the air turns it into one of the longer walks of Daryl's life. That tension is not helped when they get back to the cars to find Rick pacing furiously and Shane nowhere in sight. Daryl snorts in disgust, foreseeing yet more bullshit, and starts loading the closer car. Glenn, of course, is immediately concerned, starting toward Rick. "Rick? Where's Shane? Is everything alright?"

"Yeah, fine," Rick says, curt and distracted. "We had a disagreement, he's walking back. We'll probably catch him up as we go, he just left now. Why don't you head back with Daryl, I'll pick Shane up if we pass him by."

He frames it like a question, but that's an order if Daryl's ever heard one, and Glenn recognizes it, too, nodding and heading back towards Daryl. He's clearly uncomfortable, looking anywhere but at Daryl, and just as clearly in pain. If Rick's head wasn't stuffed so firmly up Shane's ass, he would see it plain as day.

Glenn is moving so slowly and hesitantly, pained and glancing back every few steps as though looking for rescue, that Daryl has the pups settled in the back seat, and is sitting behind the wheel by the time Glenn arrives at the passenger's side. Rick has, by this point, already driven off, no doubt in search of his precious butt-buddy. Considering how essential he and Glenn are, it's pretty ballsy, the way the rest of the camp sometimes clearly doesn't seem to give a shit. He hates them especially, lately, for not looking out for Glenn the way they should be. They have a goddamn duty, and they're failing fucking miserably.

Daryl, seething with badly contained anger, stomps on the gas as soon as Glenn has shut the door, slamming his unprepared passenger back into the seat.

The resultant quiet, pained gasp makes Daryl feel far more guilty than he is comfortable with, and this in turn gets him angrier. He speeds up, the shitty car finally giving a satisfying growl as he reaches highway speeds on a poorly-maintained country road. Just ahead, Rick is pulling over next to a figure on the side of the road, doubtless Shane. Daryl feels a sudden, dark urge to swerve just a little to the right, slam into them both. In his mind's eye he can see clearly the fiery wreck that he would create, hitting them at this speed.

It scares him a little, how briefly tempting it is, and he slows the hell down, breathing deep and slow. The urge is gone, vanishing as suddenly as it had occurred, and he shakes his head.

His head is in a mess all the time, lately.

The horror and stress of his everyday life, the uncertainty of their future, and his entangled mess of conflicting feelings for the other survivors, all banding together and fucking him up. He can't tell whether he's coming or going sometimes. Not a moment of privacy to just settle in and sort it all out, and the moment he is alone he wants, he needs, really, to be around people again. And that is a problem of its own, of course.

Ever since the end of the world, Daryl can't stand to be on his own. He can be alone, of course, and god does he need to be alone sometimes, but just the thought of being really on his own (abandoned) sets him on edge. The walkers, their twisted, broken mockery of humanity, make the physical reality, the physical presence of other people, deeply reassuring. It's a primal thing, a regression to hindbrain instincts. Others like you mean safety. The sound of people, the rightness of the way they move, the wholeness of their bodies, even the smell of them, the feel of whole, healthy flesh (on the rare occasions that he unwinds enough to be touched without snarling like a dog); it all reads safety, belonging, home. Being around people is like scratching an itch deep in his psyche.

There is something terrifying about the prospect of trying to live alone, with the world like this, never being sure that you were safe, never being able to sleep, knowing that if you were ever trapped or stranded, _no one would come for you_.

And fuck, who the hell is gonna come for him?

(_worthless, waste of skin, ain't nobody ever going to care about you except me, little brother, one of these days they're gonna scrape you off their heels like you were dog shit_)

No one. Why bother, for Daryl-fucking-Dixon? He still remembers the reactions at camp, their incredulity at the thought of precious Sheriff Rick risking his life bothering to go back for his brother after abandoning him on the rooftop, their scorn for Daryl, outright dismissal of Merle as someone worth saving. Merle wasn't worth any one of their lives, apparently, and why would they think any different about Daryl?

It hadn't been so bad before Merle had vanished. (_ain't nobody ever going to care about you except me, little brother_) For all his flaws, Daryl depended on Merle to be there for him, to watch out for Daryl and trust that Daryl would watch him in turn. He felt as secure in that relationship as he felt in anything else in the world. Not absolutely certain, but it was sure as hell better than nothing. And then Merle had up and vanished, maybe died, in exactly the way that Daryl is desperately afraid of – abandoned, left behind, discarded. Worthless. Scraped off someone's heel like so much dog shit.

He's half-afraid he's failed Merle, and half-afraid that he's next.

It's worst by far when he's trying to sleep. He used to share with his brother, tent, car, room, whatever; whenever they stopped to sleep, Daryl was with Merle. The first thing he saw when he woke was his brother, and the last thing before he went to sleep. It was a reassuring constant, as the world went mad around him. Now, though, he sleeps alone. And he hasn't slept through the night since Merle disappeared, waking at every little sound in the night, suspecting either walkers or foul play or abandonment.

It is a miserable, wretched way to live, and he can't keep it up.

"Daryl?" Glenn's voice is small and rasping.

"What?" he snarls.

"Where're you going?"

"The hell d'you mean?" Daryl frowns. Has Glenn managed to hit himself in the head, too? He's starting to wonder how Glenn gets dressed on his own, uninjured, never mind getting in and out of walker-heavy cities undetected.

"Uh, it's just that the turn was, uh, there," he jerks a thumb back along the road behind them. Daryl glowers at the steering wheel for leading him astray, and thinks wistfully about just kicking Glenn out and gunning it, driving off into the distance, somehow moving fast enough to leave all the turmoil in his head behind. And when he does, damnit, he is taking the dogs with him.


	7. Chapter 7

Bringing the dogs into camp goes about as well as Daryl had expected; a great goddamn mess of sweet exclamations and cooing and petting and cuddling and coddling. Those dogs probably receive, in the first moments of their introduction to camp, more physical affection, more genuine pleasure at their presence, than Daryl has in his whole fuck-up life. It's a depressing, pathetic thought, with an uncomfortable amount of self-awareness.

Daryl is not a huge fucking fan of self-awareness, actually.

But there is something to be said for being on the outside looking in, and that is that the group dynamics are an open book. Rick, despite the CDC mess, can do no wrong in most eyes –he has his woman hovering close and touching every so often, reassuring herself, his boy clutching him with one hand, despite the puppies being an option, open adoration writ clear on both of their faces. Rick is not quite the marauding bastard who ought to succeed in a world like this, nor is he the paragon of shining virtue and leadership that some people want, but he is a compelling man. He manages to be competent enough to be a force to be reckoned with, and also an honest-to-God _good_ man. He is a big damned hero, if only of the flawed and imperfect and human type.

Shane is away, disapproving again, standoffish and angry. The hell with him.

Glenn is near the centre of the vortex of soft-headed joy, but not swallowed up. Part and party to the happiness (cause of most of it), but not swept away by it. Kneeling gingerly, one arm wrapped around his hurt side, but sneaky enough that no one notices. Glenn is a little bit heroic himself, but sneaky with it, where Rick is all out on display, all the time.

Yeah, that fits him about right. Sneaky heroics. Good in quiet ways, doing things that people don't notice until they stop happening. Too kind, too soft, too much of an idealist to have made it this long at all, but for the backbone, which must be pure steel for the strength of it when he finally uses it (not near often enough for Daryl's comfort).

Daryl picks at the sleeve of his jacket thoughtfully. Small things, quiet things.

His girl, his little fuzzy hellhound, chooses that moment to extract herself from her adoring masses and bound on over. She doesn't quite manage to stop all of her feet in on go, and tumbles to a skidding halt, sprawling in front of his boot. He nudges her very, very gently. "Good girl," voice as gruff as he can manage. She manages to get all four feet under her at once, stands up to give him a long, inscrutable look. He stares back, until she rolls onto her back and squirms, baring her belly invitingly.

He's got a twitch in his cheek. He ain't smiling. A goddamned twitch, that's all.

Still, he crouches down and ruffles her fur, tugs teasingly at her ears. She does not disappoint, leaping to her feet and snapping playfully at his fingers, growling as threateningly as she can manage (not very – too sweet-looking to be taken seriously).

He looks up to far too many eyes on him. Carol in particular has the strangest look on her face, soft and gentle and wistful. It is, in some ways, profoundly uncomfortable. He narrows his eyes, almost-but-not-quite glaring, "What're you gawking at?" She shakes her head and turns away, but the look stays on her face. He isn't quite sure what to do with it, instead looks around for something that he does know how to react to.

Instead he meets Glenn's eyes, on the other side of the crowd and heat shoots through his gut, unexpected enough to make him freeze, staring stunned like a deer at onrushing lights. He'd probably be stuck there indefinitely, except his girl chooses that moment to snap her mouth shut on the meat of his hand, puppy-sharp teeth shocking him out of his daze. "Fuck!" he mutters, pulling his hand back and pressing it hard into his pant leg. He does not look back towards Glenn.

Instead, as Ranger Rick calls the gooey-headed masses to order (creating rules and schedules and probably a goddamned duty roster) Daryl is darkly visiting and revisiting the moment when he realized he wouldn't be anything more than Glenn's mistake. He worries at it like a loose tooth, almost relishing the mess of anger and guilt and longing and resentment. He clenches his fists until his nails press bright, angry crescents into his palms.

A hand falls on his shoulder, sudden enough that he almost whips around and decks the culprit. It is only Dale, though, being his interfering-old-man self. "You've had a hell of a day, Daryl. Why don't you turn in?" Daryl grunts an affirmative, and turns towards the cottage, and then remembers.

"Glenn's hurt. Figured his fool ass might decide not to tell anyone, but he lost enough blood that he's gonna drop soon. You wanna be sending anyone off to bed, it's him." Dale gives him a funny look, and damn but Daryl is getting tired of those. Actually, he's just generally fucking tired. It is morning, and he hasn't slept for at least a day, and he's too damned old for that shit.

* * *

><p>Turns out, Rick pretty much did make up a duty roster. The dogs are just slightly less high-maintenance than the kids, when all's said and done – they need to be fed just as often, and watched pretty much all the time, so they don't wander off and draw walkers. So it's fairly natural that the care of the dogs falls either to the same people that watch the kids, or the kids themselves.<p>

With that sorted out, things pretty much return to normal, if normal is an appropriate word for the routine they have created.

Carol and Lori play housewives, though there is only one husband (and no house at all) between the two of them. Shane continues to pace and snarl and challenge, making his discomfort at being bumped from alpha male abundantly clear. Dale proselytizes and frets and clings to an obsolete morality with both hands and probably his teeth, too.

Glenn has started going out with backup. T-Dog, usually. Daryl has made sure that he is nowhere to be found, on the days that Glenn does out scavenging; there is no way in hell he is going to be out all alone with Glenn all day.

Daryl spends a lot of time in the woods.

The group eats better than they have in weeks, maybe months. But every day he has to range a little further, work a little harder. They aren't going to be able to keep living the way they are, not indefinitely.

These people are not suited to living on the move, constantly on the run. Constantly afraid. They aren't suited, and they aren't dealing. They want to go to ground, hunker down in a defensible position and wait for the storm to pass. They're getting tense, and scared, and it's making them paranoid and edgy and cruel. Daryl is more used to this way of living than any of them, and it's starting to get to him. Things need to change.

Things are going to come to a head soon, for one reason or another.

* * *

><p>Things, once again, get worse. Daryl is beginning to suspect that it is some sort of law of the universe. Like the 'god is an asshole' version of fucking entropy.<p>

It's just a sort of sad, quiet worse. At first.

The pups are not healthy creatures.

Unsurprising, all things considered. Daryl's girl is the best of the lot, but none of them are doing well; too small, too timid, and too tired. Sick, and getting worse. None of the group are vets; none of them know what's wrong or, more importantly, how to fix it.

This morning, Daryl wakes up to some serious wailing. He gets an ugly, sinking feeling when he sees that it is coming from Dale's RV. The dogs are there, and Carol and Sophia sleep there most nights – it makes Carol feel safer to have walls around her at night. There's nothing good can come of tears from over that way. And yet he goes on over anyways.

Two of the dogs have died in the night. Sophia is inconsolable, weeping with abandon into her mother's shoulder, and Carol is not looking much better. There is something so stark and tragic about the two little bodies, looking even smaller in death.

Daryl's insides twist like snakes, a harsh pressure running up from his guts to his throat. His head pulses between his temples, burning behind his eyes. The room spins, everything that is not those two little bodies going out of focus.

There is no reason for this to hurt him so deeply. Daryl has been through worse than this on a good day. They've barely had the things for a week. This is natural – this is frankly a merciful way to go, compared to the myriad of horrible deaths on offer. And yet his vision is swimming. His throat is so tight it aches. This should not _hurt_ so much. Blood rushes in his ears, loud, but not loud enough to drown out the shrill, hiccuppy crying.

His own eyes burn in sympathy, and he snarls a denial. "Hell with this," and he turns, barrels out.

The room is too small, too full by half. He hears the rest of the camp rising, coming to see what the trouble is, and he cannot be around that many people. Already he feels a sick, pressing claustrophobia, a desperate urge to not be here.

He pushes past Glenn, clearly just recently roused – shirt and hair rumpled, no hat – but eyes wide and alert. Glenn is better with people, kinder. He'll know what to do about all this. Daryl wants desperately to be alone. Actually, he wants to be drunk, but he will settle for alone.

He scoops up his crossbow and is out in the woods by the time the rest of the damned fools reach the RV he is almost deep enough into the woods not to hear the wailing, as it redoubles in volume. Every muscle in his body goes tight and drawn, his throat squeezes even tighter and his stomach twists so viciously that he's afraid that he'll be sick.

He almost misses the sound of movement in the brush, even as loud and artless as it is.

* * *

><p>This story is going to take longer than I thought. I will not abandon it until it is finished, though there may be some long waits. Short chapter, mostly as a promise that I have not forgotten this story – stay tuned, folks!<p> 


	8. Chapter 8

"No! No, please, don't, please! Help me, please, I need- I need-" At this point Daryl interrupts the witless babble with a forearm across the throat of the witless babbler, pinning him to a tree.

He's probably a teenager, skinny and dark-haired and barely any chin, a gun in his hands but the hands shaking so badly he could press the damned thing to Daryl's temple, pull the trigger and still miss. His clothes are dirty and ragged, his skin's worse where it's showing through, and he looks exhausted enough to drop without warning.

He could only be a threat by accident, in this state. Daryl is not particularly concerned.

"Shut up, boy. You'll draw walkers, dipshit, screaming like that. Shut up," he hisses.

He nods, quick and desperate, mouth pressed tightly shut. "Good. Stay quiet, hear me?" More over-emphatic nodding. Daryl steps back, drops his arm from the kid's throat but swings the crossbow up. "Now. What the hell d'you want, boy?"

"You, uh, there's," he pauses, gulping down air like he's just surfaced after a week underwater. Daryl supposes maybe he hadn't needed to press _quite_ so hard. "There's, there's more of you, right? With, with guns and," he keeps gasping shallowly, can't seem to catch his breath, and Daryl growls.

He ignores the way the kid flinches back, makes him sit with a hard shove on his shoulders and then pushes his head down further. Daryl ignores, also, the weak, flailing, confused resistance until the kid relaxes, starts taking deeper, slower breaths. "Jesus. Sit. Breathe. …Dipshit." The kid looks up at him through a dark fringe of hair, something like gratitude on his face and Daryl yanks his hand away from his back. That look makes him think of Glenn, just a little, and it does strange things to him. He doesn't want to think about it. "_Now_ talk."

He takes a deep, slow breath and sits up straighter. "Sorry. Thanks. I saw, saw smoke. Followed it, but then someone must have put it out, I couldn't see it anymore, I got lost in the woods, but I must have been going in the right direction. Please. Are there many of you? You have to help. You have to stop them. They're going to- God, it'll be my fault, please, you _have_ to help them…" He's losing the thread again.

Daryl wonders how long he's been blundering alone through the woods, and just what he thinks is going to happen. Why it's so important that there be a lot of people. People with… guns. Shit. He swings the crossbow back up, takes a step back. The kid is looking at him with wide, scared eyes and shit. Shit shit shit. "Kid-"

"Randall, my name's Randall." Shit. Didn't want to know that, didn't need to know that, the less Daryl knows about this kid that he may have to kill in the woods (to protect his people) the better.

Shit.

"Whatever. What do you want a bunch of people for? Throwin' a party? Lookin' to invite your friends, once you know how many of us there are, where we sleep and where we keep our guns?" Voice low and harsh and Daryl doesn't want to have to do this. Fuck, does he resent them for how deeply he needs to protect them. Because, quite frankly, fucked if he will let any harm come to his people, not from fucking walkers or fucking shithead punks either. Shit.

"No!" He almost shouts again, high and desperate, then clamps a hand over his own mouth, eyes huge and dark and apologetic and terrified over his hand. "No," he continues, almost too quiet to be heard now, overcompensating. "I was with a group, but they're," he looks away, expression twisting with something like guilt, something like disgust.

"They've lost their minds, fuck, they don't care- And I said they shouldn't, it wasn't right, but they were going to, so I. I shot him. They'll kill me, if I go back. And they know about the farm, now. And you have to stop them! It'll be my fault. Please, please, it'll be my fault, you have to stop them," he's on his feet again, gun left in the dirt where he was sitting, reaching for Daryl despite the crossbow.

It's awful. Daryl's pretty sure it's awful, and stupid. But the kid (Randall, goddamnit, and knowing the name makes it worse) reminded him of Glenn, just for a second, and apparently that's enough. He lowers the crossbow again.

The kid couldn't hurt someone if he tried, not in this state. And he's pretty sure that Ranger Rick would try to help him, too, and Daryl maybe doesn't want to disappoint him, either. Fucking hell.

"Alright, kid. I take the gun, and keep your hands where I can see 'em. You even blink wrong, I'll kill you. Got me?" He's nodding hard, and smiling, wide and eager to please, and Daryl knows his name and that makes it worse. He scoops up the gun (safety still on, fucking idiot kid, if he'd killed someone it would have been a fucking fluke) and tosses the kid his water bottle. The gratitude is almost too much to bear. The greedy gulping actually is too much.

He looks away, glaring off into the brush. Daryl's always cared more than is good for him. _Softheaded and softhearted_, Merle used to say, _two strikes and you ain't even started playin' yet._

Randall wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, opens his mouth to start talking, but Daryl's about at the end of his tether – someone else can make the rest of the decisions about this kid and whatever mess Daryl's just let him drop into their laps. "Let's go," he snaps. "Walk ahead of me, hands where I can see."

More eager nodding. "You got it, sure thing, whatever you want. Thanks. Thank you, for the water, you know, and. Uh. Thanks."

No more. "Shut up and keep walking."

* * *

><p>Shane, of course, tries to shoot Randall within seconds of seeing him. Daryl's beginning to suspect that it's how he says hello.<p>

Daryl was absolutely right that the boy is bringing a mess with him. If anything, it's worse than Daryl had been expecting, which is unusual in itself. The kid was running with a group of real bastards, apparently, and had finally snapped. Killed a would-be rapist, wounded another, and had to flee the scene double-time. That would have been enough trouble to deal with – deciding to shelter this idiot from a pack of vicious, immoral murderers would have been plenty, thanks.

But.

Randall knows where they're going next (because he'd told them about the place, before his change of heart) and it's clearly eating him up, now that he knows what they're likely to do when they get there. He's come to them to beg for their help, to stop the other group from reaching this place. He says there've got days, maybe hours, before they get there. He doesn't know how long, exactly, because he hadn't told them exactly where to go, but he knows that they'll find it soon enough.

He's getting hysterical (no surprise, he's been on the run for two days, hasn't eaten, barely drank, lost and fumbling and scared shitless) but he's not there yet, still making sense.

It's a farm, this place. A girl he knew before the end of the world lived there, along with a pretty big family. Randall had figured out (somehow, though he gets real tight-lipped when someone asks how) that people were there still there, maybe even the people he knew, once upon a time. And he is desperate, he is absolutely, achingly desperate, to stop the incoming barbarians that he is afraid he has sent to these people.

Daryl feels for him, can't help but feel for him. But he isn't sure that sympathy is enough to risk the safety of his people for these strangers who may or may not even be in danger, may or may not even _exist_.

It scares him, how readily he thinks of them as 'his.'

Rick, of course, thinks that they have to go help – ever the cop, he can't turn away from the idea that someone somewhere needs help that he can provide. With Rick, it is clear, this is duty.

Shane agrees. Not with the motivation, though, Daryl doesn't think. No, Shane has got so much pent-up aggro in him that this chance at a fight must be almost irresistible. A few more weeks without conflict and Shane is either going to make some, or wander off and get in a fucking fistfight with a grizzly bear for kicks.

Lori, with Carol as her supporting chorus, don't like the idea of the men going away and risking their lives, don't like the thought of the children and the camp left unprotected, don't like the thought that the men may not come back, and they especially don't like the thought that doing this might attract the attention of the other group. As horrible as it is that these other people on the farm might be attacked, they don't think that it's our responsibility to help them and put our people at risk.

Carol's voice wavers on her near-silent agreement, and her eyes are red from tears rubbed away harshly. The sight of it clicks in Daryl's mind and he matches it, faint but present, with Shane. His had been one of the dogs Daryl saw dead in the RV. He has a deeply uncomfortable moment of sympathy for the man, chooses to ignore it until it has the good sense to go away.

Dale doesn't seem to know what he wants. He's horrified at the thought of these men being unleashed on innocent and unsuspecting people, and adamant that they do, in fact, have a duty to prevent this from happening if they can. The idea of straight out murdering the marauding group doesn't seem sit too well with him either, though he admits that it may be a necessity. He sits at the fringe of the circle and feeds Randall, making his morally-conflicted-old-fart face, the one that Daryl tries to stay well away from.

Andrea is surprisingly militant. She not only says that we should be trying to help this other group, she is all for killing the attackers. More than that, she insists that she should come, if the group does decide to help. T-Dog agrees pretty strongly, and vocally. They're definitely murderers, probably rapists and who knows what else besides. They're a menace, and if there's a chance to stop them now, he says take it. Otherwise someday it'll be us they're sneakin' up on in the middle of the night. Fuckers should pay for behaviour like that.

Glenn lingers in the outer orbit of the circle, near Daryl, frowning. "What about you, Daryl? You found him. Do you believe him?"

_None of my concern_ Daryl almost says. It's on the tip of his tongue, easy and accustomed. _Leave me right out – this is for you lot to figure out_. But then, Daryl has apparently claimed these folks as his own. So maybe it is his concern, maybe he's invested enough to speak up, and important enough to be heard. Sure enough, there's expectant silence, and people looking at him like he's got something to say that's worth listening to.

Even a passing glance at Ra-the kid and one thing is clear; this one is too open, earnest, clueless to be carrying off a lie this well. "Yeah, I believe him." The blatant look of gratitude makes him uneasy and he frowns. "Kid looks too stupid to lie that well. Can't say I think it's a good idea to go runnin' off half-cocked to help these other assholes, though." He catches the tail end of what looks like a disappointed glance from Dale, and maybe Glenn, and has to bite his tongue to keep from saying anymore.

But no one else is talking.

And biting his tongue just makes him feel stupid.

So. Fuck it. "Sounds like there's too many for us to take 'em out without a plan. And we'd have to know the area, and how they fight, and who's in charge, how well armed they are..." He looks to Randall expectantly. The kid just stares back blankly for a moment before perking up.

"Oh! Me. Yeah, I know some of that. Better than they do, at least, about the area, and what they've got and where they're based and-"

Daryl rolls his eyes. "What'd I say about breathing Ra- kid? Shut up. Breathe. _Then_ talk. … Dipshit." Despite the name calling, Randall is smiling at him. Beaming, really. And Dale looks approving (in his condescending, I-knew-you'd-come-around, sort of way), and Rick is surprised but pleased. Shane's wearing this alarming, wolfish grin, and Andrea's almost matches. Lori is less impressed, Carol is unreadable (blank, really).

Glenn is smiling at him, too. Which. Well. Daryl just avoids looking at him too much.

"I'm with Daryl. I mean, where would we be, if we didn't stop to help strangers in need?" He looks over to Rick, who smiles back at him. Something seems to occur to Lori, and she slumps, resistance going out of her.

"Fine. But you aren't leaving the children unprotected." Daryl watches Rick's gaze as it jumps from person to person, and he's pretty sure he can guess at the accompanying thoughts. Dale – yes. Not much good in an assault, but a semi-capable defender. Shane – no. Too crazy, doesn't like Dale, shouldn't be left behind with Lori anyways, any fool can see that's a terrible idea.

Daryl himself. He's not too sure what Rick thinks of him. Unpredictable, probably. Too much effort to call to heel, untrustworthy. Not safe to leave him around the women and children, but pretty good at killing things. No.

T-Dog – no. Good enough shot, dependable, not batfuck insane like Shane, Rick needs him. Glenn – no. Not necessarily good at defending a base, but sneaky, more useful to Rick.

Andrea he passes over, and Daryl can see her bristle at that one, feminist rage about to erupt. He also doesn't know that when she and Shane wander off together, more often than not it really is target practice. But even if he were considering her as a combatant rather than someone to be defended, she's too aggressive and doesn't care enough about her own life. No.

Randall is an unknown, more likely a threat than someone who guards against them, and he has essential knowledge, wouldn't do to leave him behind. Obviously no.

There don't seem to be many options. His eyes flick back at Shane once, then move to settle on- no. No, no, no. "No," quiet and half-stunned, Rick either doesn't hear or ignores him. Rick is looking straight at him, and hell, hard up for choices as he is, there must be a better one than Daryl.

"You and Dale, I need you to stay back and guard the camp, make sure we are ready to leave in a hurry." No. This is too much. He isn't the man to be protecting women and children. He is the fucking attack dog, half-rabid and dangerous. No one in their right mind would trust him like this. Merle said. People don't like you, don't trust you, don't want you around. But fuck 'em, you don't need 'em. All you need is me, little brother.

"Me? You out of your mind? I'm not-" Rick's got a hand on his shoulder, right up in his face, too quiet for the rest of the group but intense enough that Daryl can't look away.

"You're dangerous as hell. You're smart, and loyal, and you can kill a man without hesitating if you need to. And you're one of us. I need you to keep my family safe, understand? I would die before letting men like this near my family. I am going to kill them, and if I miss any, I don't want Dale taking them prisoner or bargaining, I want them dead. I am trusting you to do this, Daryl. You protect them. You keep them safe."

Daryl swallows. "Shit. Yeah. Yeah, I can…" Something occurs to him, then, and he's helpless to stop his eyes from finding Glenn, crouched next to Randall and already drawing maps in the dirt. "You too, Sherriff." Rick follows his glance to Glenn and then looks back and Daryl, head tilted in a question. Daryl glares back. Trust or no, everyone else can just mind their own damned business, and keep their noses out of his.

"I'll do my best. We will. We can do this."

Rick goes to join the strategy session then, as though he hasn't just turned the world on its ear. Daryl follows.


	9. Chapter 9

Daryl is perfectly calm. He's intent and perceptive as he helps come up with sketches, rough plans for likely situations. He's useful and efficient as they pack up the campsite and hide the cars and hole up in them, ready to leave at a moment's notice. He is focussed and capable as he seeks out and erases signs that point to where his people are hiding, or where Rick is heading. He is very, very quiet as he watches Rick's group leave.

The silence is by necessity – they don't know that he's there. He'll move once they're gone, finish his sweep of the borders he's set up in his head. Once they're gone.

He takes a long, slow breath, but the sick, fearful anticipation coiling around his throat does not loosen. His eyes linger along the hard, determined set to Rick's shoulders; the loose, confident swagger of Andrea's hips; the fluid, graceful lines of Glenn's back, and he tries for confidence. At the very least, he tries to look away.

He has limited success. He watches, and watches, until one, two, three minutes after the back of the last person fades from view. He stays there until he can no longer hear the slight noises that betray their movements, then stands with a disgusted snort. Standing here pining like a teenage girl, when there're things to be done. He finishes his border-check, slinks back to where the cars are sitting, not quite idling but packed up and ready to go in a hell of a hurry.

Dale is sitting on the roof of the RV, keeping watch with a rifle by his side, Carol and Sophia and Carl holed up inside with the surviving pups. He knocks on the side of the RV to make sure that Dale is awake and alert, and is satisfied with the answering double-tap.

Next, he sticks his head inside, looking in on the RV's occupants. Carol is sitting between the door and the children, a gun held uneasily in shaking hands and a frightened, cornered animal look in her wide eyes. He nods at her, as comforting as he can manage while he's this keyed up himself.

Carl is pacing, sitting and then standing abruptly, chafing against the restriction of 'child.' He wants to be helping, believes he can help, and it seems to be driving him quietly crazy. Daryl can sympathise. He claps him on the shoulder, once, hard enough to knock him forward a step, and Carl looks up at him from under the brim of his father's too-large hat. Sophia, by contrast, is still enough to worry him. He can see the ghost of a dangerous, unpredictable father in her frightened-rabbit-stillness, as though she won't be noticed if she's quiet and unmoving enough, and he spares a moment to hate her father once more, deep and dangerous, but there's nothing he can do about that.

He spares a glance for the two dogs, curled together in a corner, and recognizes his girl's stubbornly wonky ear and distinct markings. In spite of everything else, the tight, sickening knot of tension curling around his spine loosens just slightly. He stops, spares a moment that he doesn't have to run gentle fingers over her spine, before walking out abruptly.

Lori, at the wheel of one of the cars, is his next stop. She is sitting at the wheel with a gun in her lap, hands steady as a surgeon's, comfortable with the weapon in her lap and nothing but determination in her face. Whatever else he may not like about this woman, she turns hard as steel when her back is against the wall, and he can't help but respect that about her. There will be no falling to pieces with this one, not while her family is on the line, and he's glad despite himself to have that hard eyed certainty at his back if it comes down to it.

Nothing more than a nod for her – she doesn't need his comforting or approval any more than he needs hers.

He stakes out a spot with a good view of the general direction Randall indicated and hunkers down. His agitated, helpless anticipation builds and builds until his shoulders, once pressed forcibly loose and relaxed, have crept up around his ears and are fairly aching from the tension.

He's afraid to close his eyes. Scenes in black and white and red spray across the back of his eyelids when he does, tableaus of violence that shouldn't bother him, shouldn't shill him to his bones the way it does. They aren't his to protect. They aren't his responsibility, not his problem, they are not _his_ at all, and he knows that, damnit.

Except that sometimes he doesn't. Daryl is a stubborn cuss, a real hard-headed son of a gun. He doesn't ever intend to say it; he intends to avoid acknowledging it at all, but somewhere deep and low and primal he knows that these're his people. It's deeply uncomfortable, unaccustomed, unfamiliar, and he worries at the feeling like a loose tooth, poking and prodding and pulling from all angles, almost thoughtfully. They're under his skin, and they shouldn't be. He shouldn't have let them in, but having failed that he should have sliced them out, quick and clean and right away. They're exploitable. A weakness, vulnerability that he can't afford, doesn't know how to account for, doesn't even really understand.

If he were the man he was before the world ended, he would have done it. He'd have cut them out, even if he'd had to cut himself to ribbons to do it. Because he had Merle, and _no one else wanted him anyways. No one but blood would ever want such a sorry piece of shit. No one but family's ever gonna be there for you. They all think they're better than us, hold themselves above us, look down on us like we're less than nothing. They might be under your skin, brother, but you sure ain't under theirs. You, they wiped you off their heels like you're dog shi-_

Sometimes he misses his brother so much it's hard to breathe.

Sometimes he wishes Merle'd just shut right up for a while.

More often than not he wants both.

Sometimes he wonders if the man his brother is, is anything like the man that Daryl misses. He's afraid they don't have much in common. He wonders when Merle became someone else, hard and hurtful and cruel. His brother loved him once, was even kind in his own way. But Merle as he was after the world ended (after he left home, after the drugs, after he went to jail, after he stopped caring about anyone or anything that wasn't Merle), that was a different beast.

Merle would have hated these people. Merle did hate some of them. Daryl doesn't like all of them either, truth be told. But he likes some of them, cares for them so much that it frightens him. These are the people he works with and fights for and protects and laughs with and would die for, and might just love. They could be family.

He starts walking again. For a quiet, moonless night, it is too damned loud inside his head.

He completes his perimeter, checks the camp. Remembers the look Rick had given him – _you keep them safe_ – and does the circuit again – _protect them _– and again – _I am trusting you_ – and again. His feet grow sore, his temples throb, his eyes are exhausted from too many hours of constant watchfulness, his back aches from the tension of holding himself strung tight and wound up, continually ready for trouble. But – _you're one of us – _he does it again.

And the stranger his brother had become fades, muted down to a resentful murmur in the back of his mind.

* * *

><p>The first walker doesn't really worry him. It's alone and seems to be intent on something else, and it goes down easy, quick and quiet. The thrum of adrenaline in his system is a kick, and it breaks the monotony of darkness and stillness and deep, useless anxiety. It's almost a relief.<p>

The next one is just as easy, as is the next. The subtle wrongness of them should have registered then – twice can be coincidence, but three times is a pattern – but he's tired and very, very focussed on not thinking about how much danger Glenn (and all the rest) could be in right now.

Then there is a pair of them, and they barely notice him before he's shooting them, one after the other and this is not right. He's good, but not that good. Not tonight. At least one of them should have smelled him, heard him, something. And. Maybe he's crazy, but probably he's not.

They are all going in the same direction.

He stops, re-orients himself, and then his vision blurs from the force of a sudden onslaught of panic and rage.

It's the same direction as the fucking farm.

He starts running.

* * *

><p>Lori's eyes are huge, whites showing all around and practically glowing in the pre-dawn light. He guesses there must be something really damned magical about this woman, that two lifelong friends and partners are constantly, quietly at each other's throats over her, but whatever it is, Daryl's missing it. The doe-eyed confusion is slowing him down, and he already regrets not going on his own.<p>

He can feel it, an almost physical urge to be there, fingers itching for a weapon and an enemy and the rest of him actually _aching_ to be standing between his people and whatever is coming for them, whatever wants to do them harm. He would rather be hurt himself than see harm come to them, he would throw himself in harm's way for them, and that is frightening beyond words, scares him and shakes him right down to his marrow.

Maybe this newfound devotion of his is one-sided. Maybe he really doesn't understand people. Maybe there really is something wrong with him, something unloveable about him. But right now, there is certainty straightening his spine and affection steadying his hand and longing powering tired muscles. More than that, there is dread pushing him forward with a desperate fear – what if he is too late? To lose this new, fragile sense of family now, when he is finally carving a place for it in himself, would shatter him, a fatal blow to an exposed fault line, nothing left but shards of marble and a half-formed idea.

He cannot be too late. He _will not_ be too late.

Dale is indecisive, Carol is petrified, Lori is frozen, and Daryl needs to be moving.

There's no good way to deal with this. Does he leave them behind, vulnerable as all hell with no one but Dale and maybe Lori as protection? Does he take them with him, a rolling-train of bulls-eyes at his back? Do they go on foot to stay undetected, by car for speed, can he afford the time it would take to be careful? Every bit of him, tightly strung with fear and the need to act, says _no, no, no can't wait, he has to be there now_. He wants to be rushing into the night after his wayward people. He never wants to let them out of his sight again.

"We need to do something," he says again, voice harsh and urgent. "I'm not gonna just, fucking, sit on my thumbs when-"

"We'll go, then. They need us, so we'll go." Daryl shuts up. He shuts up because it's what he wants to hear, and because it's Carol. Her face is still held in her perpetually frightened cast, but her mouth is set, eyes determined, and her hand is strong and certain on his shoulder. "They'll be alright, Daryl."

He swallows through a suddenly thick throat, looks away from her. Very, very briefly, he feels like everything will be fine, is overwhelmed by comfort and warmth and security and it leaves him breathless and nostalgic. Then he shakes his head at his own damn stupidity. It fucking well certainly will not be alright if he stands around like a sun-blinded moron.

* * *

><p>They pack the dogs into a crate. Carl and Sophia are in the RV with strict instructions to sit down and shut up, with Carol to watch them. Dale's driving the RV, Lori and Daryl driving the other cars. Daryl has left his bike behind. He's not pleased, but they're planning on having to pull people out in a hurry, and it doesn't exactly have much passenger capacity. There's a note attached to the bike, an explanation for the others should they return to the meeting place and find it deserted.<p>

The plan, such as it is, is to get to the farm, figure out whether Daryl is losing his mind, collect their errant group, and then the hell out of dodge.

It's not his best plan. But at least they're moving.

The farm is an hour's walk, if you're being careful and quiet. It has been five, now. It was just before dusk when they left, and it's near midnight now. He can't help thinking that something has gone wrong. They shouldn't have been gone this long. Something isn't right.

Once again, he's struck by the thought that as dangerous as the walkers are, people can be worse. And so, as frightened as he is by the idea of the others getting into trouble with walkers, he's just as afraid that they're in trouble with people. He shakes his head, as though the thoughts troubling him could be banished as easily as flies buzzing about his head.

They can't.

He drives, and drives, and does his best to ignore the visions painting the inside of his skull, of the thousand grisly deaths he is afraid he's driving towards. Then he sees the pillar of roiling, angry smoke, and the deep muted glow of a fire. And floors it.

* * *

><p>Occasionally, in times of stress or crisis, time feels like it slows right down, the world around him moving at a crawl.<p>

This is not one of those times.

He arrives to fire and chaos, and what might have been a farm once. And walkers, dozens, of them, distinguished by their slow, terrible single-minded motion. Gunshots and screams and ravenous, inexhaustible shambling corpses.

Daryl has never been a religious man, but if he'd ever turned his mind to imagining hell, he couldn't have done a better job than this.

He turns the car abruptly back around, the tires squealing harshly, to intercept Lori and Dale. "Stay back! Lights on, doors locked, and keep moving! Don't let 'em get a hold of you," and he's gone again, roaring off into the dark and the chaos.

He can't seem to think fast enough, can't catch up to what's happening because there's a corner of his mind, getting louder the longer it's left unanswered, appealing to any benevolent force left in the universe.

_Keep them (him) safe. I'm almost there. Just five more minutes, that's all I need, just five minutes._

The building on fire looks like it was a barn, and it's surrounded by bodies. Some of them are on fire and still moving around, which is horrific and jarring. When something is on fire, it should be panicking. To see otherwise makes no _sense_. It makes Daryl shudder. Worse than the unnaturalness of it, though, is that the damn things are setting everything around them aflame. Most of the non-walker motion is concentrated on a house, near the barn but not yet surrounded by the walkers. He can hear yelling from that direction, the voices all unfamiliar and spiralling up into panic as the flames and the walkers get closer. Above it all is the strange, breathless moan of the walkers, broken by the screaming of horses and panicked livestock.

_Five minutes. Anything. I'll do anything, just keep them safe._

He ignores the gravel road and its meandering path towards the house, cutting blind across the field. He can see the men on the outside gathering to rush the house, can see the walkers approaching it too in their relentless, unhurried, unstoppable way, and the flesh on his back is fairly crawling with his need to get over there, to _do_ something. Daryl might be finding religion, from the vehemence of his bartering and demanding.

_Anything, everything, just so long as I'm not too late. Please._

Finally, finally close enough, and action supplants desperate pleading in his head. He pulls the car into a hard turn and squealing halt and blasts his horn. Three men drop straight down, one rushes for cover, one runs at the house. The rest turn to him, guns and heads whipping around to face this fresh threat. Unlucky for them, by the time they've turned round and realized he's not one of theirs, he's got a gun up and shooting.

One, two, three go down with startled shouts and the exaggerated backwards jerk of a bullet's impact. One's left standing, frozen and bewildered but at a bad angle to Daryl's open window, he can't pull himself around enough to get a clear shot, and soon the man is going to pull himself together and Daryl is going to die- He's startled into movement by the deafening, staccato thud-thud-thud of returned fire punching holes in the car doors, too close for comfort, but the man he can't get a line on has dropped, the sharp retort of gunfire coming from the house and Daryl stamps on the gas, deeply uncomfortable with presenting a stationary target.

There follows a different kind of chaos, a shoot-out between two sides with both pausing for potshots at the on-coming horde, flames advancing and painting the scene in ominous, smoky orange and red. His side will win – they've the advantage of shelter, the outsiders are confused and in the dark and the walkers are at their backs. They'll win for numbers, skill, tactical advantage or just the animal fear of the walkers that will make the attackers clumsy and desperate. But it won't be quick enough. The walkers are close, and relentless, and too many to get around – they would be trapped inside the house. And the fire is advancing just as quick as the walkers.

They have a minute, maybe two. After that it is death by fire or guns or being torn apart by walkers.

And Daryl really wishes that this could have been one of the times when time slows itself down for him, rather than leaving him straining to catch up, confused and in danger and reacting without conscious decision. Then he might've had time to come up with a real plan, but even as he's thinking this he's veering off course again, choosing the most direct route to the besieged house. This happens to require him to mow down two of the remaining three besiegers, which is a convenient bonus. He pulls right up to the door and lays on the horn and hopes like hell that no one gets trigger-happy.

He hears Lori coming around, but sees Dale keeping some distance, as Daryl had asked – the RV is too tempting a target, and in such bad shape that a stray bullet or a few lucky walkers could bring it out of commission, and that would lead to a giant damn clusterfuck. If there are too many for two cars, some people are just going to have to run for the RV.

Finally, finally, the door opens. First out is the barrel of a shotgun, followed shortly by Shane's ugly mug and despite his own dislike for the man Daryl feels almost weak with relief for a moment.

He stares out, feral and dangerous-looking, and his eyes go almost comically wide as he grasps what's going on. He disappears, just as Daryl starts shouting. "Get in the fucking cars, you waitin' for a goddamn handwrit invitation? Hurry the fuck up, I'm working to a fuckin' deadline here! Wh-" And the door slams open again, people fairly pouring out. They pack into Lori's car first, Rick and T-Dog and an older woman and a teenage boy and she's off, then Shane crashes into Daryl's passenger seat with such momentum that the car shakes. Andrea and a large fat man and an old, white-haired man pile into his backseat and he should be moving already, there's no more space but-

But he can't leave yet because he's seen Rick and Shane and Andrea and T-Dog but there are still some people outside the house and not in the cars, exposed and vulnerable and _one of them is Glenn_, the fucking idiot is waiting for the stupid stragglers, of fucking course he is, and Daryl isn't going fucking anywhere- "Drive!" Shane is bellowing and Andrea's leaning out the window and taking out walkers like some kind of fucking sniper and under other circumstances that would be hot as hell but-

Daryl's just remembered the last man is still out there, and he's remembered because he can see him going for Glenn and the others and then things do slow down for him.

He sees the man stand, sees the desperate calculations in his eyes, sees him lunge, sees that it's Glenn and two girls, one holding a baseball bat, the other clutching the first and having hysterics. Despite two probably-easier targets, the man tackles Glenn – probably hoping to take out the only one that's armed. There's a struggle but the stranger is bigger and mean-looking and took Glenn by surprise, and when they come up he's got a gun to Glenn's head and the girls are screaming and the walkers are getting closer and the house is catching fire but Daryl has time, because everything is moving at half-speed around him.

The man opens his mouth, probably looking to score a ride out of here but Daryl is out of the car, one hand on his gun and one hauling Shane halfway into the driver's seat, "Get out of here!" and the man has a strong survival instinct, Daryl will give him that, because Shane adjusts immediately and the car is barrelling away into the night.

That shuts everyone up for a second, the surprise of seeing their only viable escape leave so unceremoniously. (And Daryl will remember this, too. Because he knows that Dale is waiting nearby, but Shane was perfectly happy abandoning them without knowing that. Daryl will remember that, alright.) The sudden shock of fear and betrayal on Glenn's face is almost enough to make him stand up and announce himself, but speed and darkness are his only chance at killing this fucker without risking Glenn.

Instead he moves, quick and quiet and low to the ground, body held with a kind of intent, focussed intention that has always felt unreal after the fact. Times like this he can see what needs to happen next and just do it, a sort of power of sight or understanding that makes everything clear and simple. He's always been more comfortable acting than speaking, and times like this make the world make sense. So he's behind the man almost before thinking about it, quick and easy, and he shoots him without hesitation, because that's what needs to happen next. Glenn's out of immediate danger, and the last of Daryl's people are safe(ish).

Then his easy, simple, understandable world washes away into chaos, sound and light and terror pouring into the space in his head hollowed out by his single-minded purpose. Reality snaps back into place and there is screaming and fire and a dead body on the ground before him and blood on his hands and splattered across his shirt and Glenn staring at him with wide, dark eyes.

And there are walkers at their backs, coming ever closer.

"Daryl," Glenn's voice rough and breathy and shocked and it's a voice that's going to visit Daryl late at night but right now is a move-or-die sort of moment.

He presses a hand to Glenn's shoulder, solid and real and within arms' reach, as much to reassure himself as Glenn (something listened, and Daryl maybe shouldn't have said, _anything, everything, just s'long as I'm there in time _now that he's half-afraid something might be coming to collect on his half-hysterical promises) and intends to push him in the direction of the RV, get the last of his people to something approaching safety.

Instead arms wrap around him, sudden and fierce, a body pressed tight to his own, warm and whole and safe, and it takes eons for his arms to respond to the conflicting messages he's giving them (push, pull, hold, release, _don't ever let go again_) but they settle uneasily around Glenn. He curls inward unintentionally, drawing Glenn closer and pressing his face in, quickly, quickly, against dark sweat-damp hair and taking a quick, shaking breath.

There are lips against his ear (he shivers despite the time and the place and the imminent death and realizes he's in deep without hope of escape) "Thank you." He's released, left with a bizarre feeling of loss and cold despite the heat of the night and the sweat beading on his face. "Man, am I glad to see you. I hope you've got a way outta here?" The words are pouring from him in a nervous rush and Daryl's already herding him and the two no-longer-screaming girls towards the RV, hidden out in the darkness, safety finally in reach. It doesn't come a moment too soon, the RV door slammed shut behind Daryl with walkers close at their backs, grasping malformed horrors out of a nightmare, rotting in the darkness and almost within arms' reach.

But they're safe. For now.

* * *

><p>So. I acknowledge that I am a terrible person for taking this long. Action scenes of any sort take me quite a while. I hope this is worth the wait.<p> 


	10. Chapter 10

Daryl's eyes are starting to feel chalky with over-use, but he can't sleep. His head throbs to the tune of his heartbeat (which is finally slowing down but pounds double-time whenever he hears something he can't immediately identify) and it flashes white-hot with pain at every bump and jostle. He's sore all over. He hasn't slept for more than forty hours now, he's been on the move for most of them, and exertion and adrenaline have left him hollowed out and scraped clean. But he can't sleep.

There are strangers in the RV. There are strangers everywhere, and he feels the wrongness of it like ants under his skin. They're unknowns, they could be dangerous, or stupid (and so dangerous), and he is cut off from parts of the group.

He doesn't know what the hell happened out there in the darkness at that farm, and the need to know is eating him up.

And.

And Daryl's three rescues are huddled together in the little kitchenette, and Glenn's got his arm around the older girl. She's got the smaller, blonde, bawling one wrapped up in her arms, but Glenn's got a hand on the older girl's back, and she keeps giving him these desperate, grateful looks. Like he's the only stable thing in a world suddenly set spinning around her she keeps looking back at him, reorienting herself. Daryl knows the feeling. (He might be projecting, just a little.)

Each time he looks it twists him up tighter, but he can't stop.

She's pretty enough. A soft, kind face if you weren't paying attention, if you missed the stubborn set of her chin, the fierceness in her eyes. (Daryl is absolutely paying attention.) She looks sweet and sharp and pretty. She looks like any number of things that Glenn deserves. Things that Daryl decidedly is not. And Glenn's arm is curved around her protectively, hand steady and constant on her back and Daryl wants to break something, needs to get the violent, destructive jealousy out before it burns him.

He's trying to pace, but he must look dangerous, because the more he moves the more Sophia shrinks in on herself, and that makes him feel sick and wretched, so he sits and stews until he's almost vibrating with it. He's trying really hard not to look aggressive or menacing, watching the girl from the corner of his eye until her shoulders come down from around her ears.

"Daryl? Think you could come up here and help me out?"

The interruption is really, really welcome. The old man doesn't need to know it, though. He hunches down in the seat and glares a little. "What d'you want?"

"My eyes aren't quite what they were. I hoped you could sit up here and watch the road with me for a while?"

Daryl relaxes a bit, tips his chin down and smirks over. "Sure thing, old man. Traffic's pretty bad tonight, huh?" Dale snorts, smiles gently.

"Hah, yeah, upside to the end of the world: no more traffic jams."

"Right, right, keep on the sunny side." Dale is giving him a strange, side-eyed look. "What?"

He looks away quickly, too innocent all of a sudden. "Hm? No, nothing. Nothing."

"Just spit it out, will you?"

"You're much sharper than you like to let us think, that's all." Daryl stares over, brow furrowing, but Dale is studiously watching the road, avoiding his eye. He wants to squirm and hunch in on himself, but with embarrassed pleasure rather than angry humiliation. It's a strange feeling, to have someone assume that he is _more_ than he appears, to feel so secure in this man's esteem, to be so casually complimented.

"Huh," he grunts. "That's me alright. Hidden layers. Like an onion." He doesn't trust himself to smile, afraid of what might be showing in it. But he relaxes, lets Dale's chatter wash over him like elderly, opinionated waves. He leans his head back onto the seat, savouring the stretch in his neck, and lets his eyes slide shut.

* * *

><p>Daryl has nightmares. Less than you might think given the whole, dead walking the earth thing.<p>

Anyway, what they lack in frequency, they're trying to make up in intensity; he comes to with a name on his lips and illusory teeth bare inches from his throat, thrashing against grasping, restraining hands and sweating enough to soak through his already filthy, stinking clothes.

There are real hands on him, gripping at the shoulders and panic closes a cold hand around his chest (if this much is real then what about the rest-) and his senses are still foggy with sleep but he's up and out of the chair and slamming the other body into the RV's side wall-

The RV. The events of the last night come back, and he loosens his tunnel-vision focus enough to hear "Daryl? Daryl, c'mon man, it's alright, we're fine, it's safe-" and to see the face he is just inches away from.

Glenn. Surprised, confused, but (ridiculously, stupidly) not afraid. Daryl's got him pinned to a wall with an arm across his throat and Glenn's just watching patiently. Not at all like nightmare-Glenn.

That is the real problem that Daryl is having with his nightmares. They aren't just about him, alone in the dark with monsters on his tail. He's been having those dreams since long before the monsters were actual _monsters_, walking around outside his head where they've no business being. No, this new breed of dream is a problem because they hurt him in a different way – it is a new and unfamiliar torture to see people he cares for hurt, unable to protect them. These days, his nightmares aren't the paranoid terror of being hunted, but a wretched, terrible awareness of failure.

The monster is indistinct, amorphous – sometimes human, sometimes a rotting, shambling mockery, sometimes something else entirely – but the victim is always too, too clear. And he was screaming Daryl's name, expecting a rescue that Daryl failed to deliver – it happened just once while he was awake, and then many, many nights afterwards in Daryl's dreams.

But he's here now, safe and whole and unhurt and unafraid and Daryl's hands slide of their own volition until they are clutching just a little bit desperately at Glenn's upper arms, digging in. Reassuring himself. Glenn looks at him strangely, jaw twitching like he's about to speak (and Daryl shouldn't know this, shouldn't be watching, noticing, remembering, but _he is_ and he can't stop) and Daryl snatches his hands back, tries to control his breathing. Waits for his heart to slow from a terrified gallop. He turns away, only to catch Dale staring at him with wide eyes and surprised eyebrows (the man has very expressive eyebrows) and he snarls, uncomfortable with the attention and wanting to curl in on himself but too proud to let it show.

"Daryl, is everything alright?" Glenn, concerned and hesitant. "Only, just now, you said-"

"Nothing! I didn't say a damned thing. Not a fucking word," Daryl hisses, and Glenn shrinks back, frowns at him, and Daryl feels ashamed, but he will not take it back, and he will not apologize, and he did not say a damned thing. This is a lie; Daryl knows exactly what – who – he was yelling for, if he'd done half as much yelling aloud as he had in his dream (though thankfully he doesn't talk much in his sleep) he'd have screamed himself hoarse, and the less said about it the better, and Daryl is not going to apologize for this-

"Sorry. Didn't mean t'snap at you. Just surprised me." He snaps his jaw shut before anything else unexpected can pop out. Glenn smiles and shakes his head, as if to say 'all is forgiven' and Daryl smiles weakly back. And _does not open his damned mouth_ until he can figure out how to keep from spilling his thoughts everywhere like a gutted fish.

He drops back down into the seat, digging the heels of his hands into his eyes, and tries to calm the fuck down. He's almost there, when, "So, do you want to talk about it?" It's Dale, of course it's Dale, and no, he fucking well does not want to talk about it. Then again, he may or may not have been calling Glenn's name as he woke up, so.

"Those wanna-be gangsters," he mutters abruptly, not telling the whole story but enough of it to make sense. He opens his eyes just long enough to glance from Dale to Glenn and back again, catch the flash of comprehension. "And tonight. If we'd been late. I just-" he cuts himself off with a disgusted huff. Mouth's running away on him again.

He sits in stormy silence the rest of the drive, arms crossed and face closed off, ignoring all attempts to talk until the message is received and he's left alone.

* * *

><p>The caravan finally pulls over some hours later, taking shelter in the worn down stone shell of an old building. The atmosphere is strange. Tense. They've won, essentially, faced down hostile strangers and a horde of walkers and not lost anyone (though maybe the new people are missing someone). But it doesn't feel like a victory, just another catastrophe, and it shows, everyone haggard and harried and worn around the edges, silent and subdued for the most part. But introductions need to be made, and so do decisions.<p>

First, Daryl learns names. Otis and Hershel and Patricia and Jimmy and Beth. And Maggie. Daryl might not bother to remember the other names, but he has a feeling that he'll have trouble forgetting Maggie, even now standing very close to Glenn.

Then the story gets a bit bizarre. There were walkers in the barn. They had been _intentionally_ keeping walkers in that barn. No doubt thinking that the feds'd be by any day now with some special magic fairy dust to make everything better. He can't stop himself from scoffing, and doesn't try. It's worth it for the hurt, offended look on cowgirl barbie's face.

So, his own group had arrived first, been greeted with relatively open arms (not nearly enough suspicion for Daryl's taste, and he's wondering how they've lived as long as they have) and they'd been sitting inside a nice little farm house, shooting the breeze over some fresh-squeezed orange juice. Rick would have been trying very earnestly, Daryl has no doubt, to convince these people of the danger that may or may not be approaching, and (guessing from the sheer pig-headed naivety) probably having very little luck.

Then the other group had arrived. Unfortunately for them, they checked the barn first, and shortly thereafter the sound of screaming and gunshots turned the place into a miniature three-way battlefield. It still would have been over rather quickly, except the barn zombies were not the only ones on the scene. Just as the last of the barn walkers were dispatched, and most of the invading group of survivors, walkers started coming out of the woods. First ones and twos, then a trickle, and then a steady outpouring that looked as though there would be no end.

Then the barn caught fire. That's about when Daryl arrived, and he knows the rest of the story well enough (well enough, indeed, that it will without a doubt be entering his nightmare rota inside of a week).

There is the obligatory trading of sob stories, heading towards the almost foregone conclusion that there will be a consolidation of groups in the near future. Daryl is getting better at group dynamics, and he can see that this one is headless, lacking a leader, and Rick-the-paragon-of-virtue seems to be like a beacon for people like that.

Hershel is shaken, gaunt, tired, haunted – probably head of the household but taken away from his home and whatever solid foundation he had been resting on; Otis looks big and imposing but Daryl mostly gets agreeable from him, not a forceful enough personality to lead people through the kind of hells that they'll be facing; same for Patricia. Jimmy is young and stupid; Beth is young and scared; Maggie… Well, galling as it is, Maggie could have something. Too young, too sheltered from the new reality, too deferential to the father, but that'll all change real quick, and then she'll be something.

_She-and-Glenn_ will be something and his chest squeezes like wrapping over broken ribs – dull and probably good for you, with an undertone of sharp and searing and hellish.

Daryl just concentrates on breathing, slow and calm and measured, like he's hunting.

Once he can do that, he returns to weighing the costs and benefits. There are the obvious drawbacks associated with any new additions – throwing the power structure and social ties into disarray, more mouths to feed, more bodies to draw walkers, more people to make mistakes, more personalities to clash. On the other hand, Hershel has more medical experience than a cop's first aid training, Otis looks like a solid, dependable guy, more people mean security, more hands in a crisis, more eyes in the night. He won't object to the fact that they're not city people, either – that usually means a bit more of a certain kind of common sense, a little more readiness to accept life's harsher realities.

And Glenn is smiling a little softer.

Daryl breathes some more. Because he can, damnit.

They're still talking, Jesus Christ. But Rick must have seen something in Daryl's face, because now he's looking over in askance. Daryl's gut pitches a little – this is responsibility again, beholden to others, weak, _vulnerable_ – but he nods, once, terse, but affirmative.

A few of the hardest lines fade from Rick's face, expression losing its pinched quality, and Daryl supresses a shiver at the thought that it was his confirmation Rick was looking for, his approval that calmed the worst of his fears.

It feels like too much, pressing in on him from all sides, overwhelming. He can't imagine how Rick breathes.

Randall is trying to inconspicuously hide behind Daryl, while simultaneously trying not to stand too close to Daryl. He twitches whenever he's looked at directly. Daryl, through a judicious application of side-eye, notices that Randall is watching forlornly the same scene that Daryl is studiously avoiding – Glenn and Maggie drifting gently and inexorably together, like tectonic plates – and it's- Daryl wasn't looking for common ground, and he's not too pleased to have found it, but there you go.


	11. Chapter 11

There is something wrong with Shane. Well. There is something more than usual wrong with Shane. It's making Daryl edgy. It's making Rick edgy and Daryl can see that spreading like ripples over still water until _everyone_ is off-kilter and snarling like hungry dogs at one another.

It's only been a day, no one had been expecting two wary, insular groups of people to join up and create an after-school special together, but it's worse than it should be. They're still camping in the wreckage of the stone structure, and the imposing silhouette of some other building, still standing, looms over them. It seems ominous in the day, downright malicious at night, and it isn't helping – the new people want to settle there, seem to have no idea how difficult it would be to clear a place that size.

That was just one of the fights, and none of them had been pretty. There is too much tension today, more than there had been even yesterday, and Daryl can see Shane all over it, brooding malice left in his wake like a small child's sticky fingerprints. There were two separate fires last night, so clearly distinct that someone might as well have drawn lines in the dirt.

Daryl noticed, maybe a little smugger than was necessary, that last night Maggie was with her family, and Glenn was with his- well. Family's maybe not the word, but Glenn was where he belonged, too.

Most of the lines are pretty clearly drawn, people falling into some very definite camps, Shane's got almost no one behind him and he knows it.

But Daryl's busy watching Andrea. The new folks have no experience of Shane when he was a little less overtly crazy, and the man as-is inspires very little belief in his rational decision-making ability. Most of Daryl's group are squarely behind Rick. Daryl, lord help him, would like to be able to say he's sticking around until something better comes along, and knows that in fact if Rick decided to head down through the gates of hell itself Daryl would probably be hard on his heels.

Andrea, though. Amy's death sent her somewhere ugly, and she's back harder and meaner and less concerned with what's right, more with what's necessary, what feels good, what's easiest. Daryl would like to approve but it smacks of the worst of Merle, and there's that poisonous malice of Shane's, almost a shroud around her.

When one of the big men about town finally decides to throw down, it will be interesting to see where she falls.

* * *

><p>Shane and Rick are gone – Daryl is pretty sure they're just hugging it out in the woods together, because there is no good reason for two grown-ass men who hate each other to spend that much time alone together in the woods – and the vibrating tension that had been jumping around the group has gone with them.<p>

In their absence, people relax into their relief at new, safe companions, other survivors, sinking into the idea of a bigger community. It's seductive – the way they had been losing people since the camp by the quarry has been frightening, felt uncontrollable and inevitable and endless. Gaining people feels like their luck is changing. Maybe it's wrong. Probably it's wrong. But it means something, and it changes something to be gaining rather than losing for once.

So Daryl decides to channel his inner Zen bullshit artist, and finds himself some inner peace. Turns out that looks a lot like rolling around in the dirt with a pair of puppies and a dirty, grinning boy. The dogs are bright-eyed, energetic and growing larger every day, and Carl is wrestling and gleeful and giggling like a child. Daryl'd like to say he's transported to his childhood, but tussling with Merle always had a sort of vicious edge.

Daryl wishes sometimes that he'd had a chance to be a big brother.

He's got Carl in a thoughtful sort of headlock. The boy is struggling, gleeful and wild, Daryl's just hanging on with a shit-eating grin; there's a dog gnawing determinedly on the toe of one boot, and he's saved from an impasse by a warbling war-cry and an almost insubstantial weight crashing into his back. Sofia. Daryl can feel a grin splitting his face that he's helpless to contain. The girl's clinging to his back, so he shakes the dog gently off, adjusts his grip on the boy and spins the lot of them around until they scream for mercy.

As he spins he's subject to a barrage of broad smiles, familiar faces, snatches of helpless laughter. His eyes catch on Glenn's, mouth open in gleeful, artless laughter, something soft and warm and contented in the set of his eyes and-

Daryl falls over his own feet, managing only through a uniquely painful set of contortions to keep himself between the children and the ground as he lands. The impact forces the breath from his lungs and he lies still, eyes shut, wheezing and contemplating the many ways in which he is completely screwed. Daryl hasn't tripped over himself like that since he was a teenager, which was a good while ago and a good god damned riddance, too.

Screwed, screwed, screwed.

A wet nose pushes insistently into his ear and he shivers all over, nearly displacing Carl, who is sitting on his chest, and Sofia, on his legs. The dogs are clambering up to join them and joy is settling warm and sweet and buoyant in his chest and he laughs and puts his hands up. "I surrender, you got me. Little demons."

He is lost, head over heels, jumping head first and eyes closed tight. And he can't find it in himself to mind all that much, wouldn't stop for anything.

He can hear Glenn's laughter, smooth and sweet and fond, distinct from the collective noises of good humour, and it soothes some of the rough places in his own heart and it is terrifying how easy this feels, in a life that is otherwise almost too hard.

But then, hasn't he earned his place here? He considers Lori and Rick and Carol who trust him, absolutely and immediately and without a second thought with their children, those things most precious in their world, and there is no denying it. He's one of these people, family in all the ways that matter – trust and love and protection and loyalty, tied together with everything but common blood. And no matter what his brother might have said to the contrary, it's enough.

When the assorted child-and-puppy flesh has calmed itself and settled, Daryl sits up and presses the heel of his hand into the small of his back with a sigh. "'m getting too old for this rolling around in the dirt nonsense." Sophia giggles, but it's half-hearted and she's already moved on to playing with the dogs.

Hah. Not even as interesting as a rude, unwashed, mangy little puppy.

Carl is standing off to the side, apparently having remembered that he wants to be treated like a real adult, and it acting like all of this nonsense is beneath his boundless dignity. He and the girl keep surreptitiously side-eyeing each other, though, so Daryl suspects that his solemn refusal to participate will last all of ten minutes.

He's about to hoist his sore, elderly self to his feet, but Glenn beats him to the punch with an offered hand.

This is not the sort of thing that should be bringing heat to the back of Daryl's neck. He is actually a grown-ass man. Blushing at the drop of a hat is not on.

He takes the offered hand, and he holds on a little too long and just rolls with it. He's still a little lost in the broad smile that seems to be warming him from the inside out. He is… still holding on, now, and smiling back, drawn inwards by something as inevitable as gravity. They might as well be alone right now, for all the attention he has to spare for the people around him because he can feel Glenn pulling him closer, gentle pressure and warm, work-calloused hands and there is a deep, shivery heat creeping up his spine, anticipation, alarm and surprised elation mingling in his gut.

Of course, that's when the shouting starts up in the forest.

Daryl's tunnel vision falls away and he notices that they're being surreptitiously watched, with backs half-turned for at least the illusion of privacy. They've maybe been a little more obvious than he thought. Glenn sighs, close enough that Daryl can feel it against his collarbones and Daryl swallows, throat suddenly hot and dry. Rick and Shane's bitch-fit be damned, they can kiss and make up without anyone holding their hands through it, and Daryl's awareness is trying to contract back down to a nice little two-person universe when he feels a moment of fierce, frightening apprehension – something is going to go violently wrong.

And Daryl will be damned if he lets yet another crisis push aside yet another moment that feels like it could be what he wants.

He pulls on their still joined hands, hard and sudden enough that they're stumbling together and he reaches up to rest a hand where Glenn's neck meets his shoulder, rough palm resting against smooth skin. He rests his forehead against Glenn's and lets his eyes close. This is a declaration, unmistakeable, and he's feeling brave enough to make it but not enough to see pity or rejection if he's wrong.

He feels another shaky exhalation, closer still, warm breath against his mouth and the press of a hand against his ribs, and his knees might go a little weak with relief. He opens his eyes and a gunshot breaks the breathless silence between them and Daryl has never regretted being right more than he does right now.

Glenn goes tense against him (which he's certain he'll have trouble forgetting, later) and they spring apart, going for weapons and startled into alertness. Around them, the air of fondness and amusement evaporates and he can feel it sharpening into controlled violence without needing to look for confirmation. He can feel his people closing ranks, hears the children being gathered and retreated to a defensible position, feels the almost unconscious coordination of effort going on as people organize themselves in reaction to the crisis. While there might be bickering when they have the luxury to do so, the group acts like a single organism when it's under threat.

Daryl is scrambling, suddenly on high alert, all of his nervous interest and energy switching tracks. He's already gathered his knife and cross-bow, checked and double-checked gun and ammo and bolts, trusting that the rest will be doing what needs to be done (and how good it feels, to have that sort of certainty at his back), and getting ready to run off into the woods around dusk _towards_ the sound of a gunshot. Before he can leave, though, someone catches his shoulder and spins him around to face them.

Glenn looks grim and serious, all the levity of a moment ago gone as though it had never been, harsh determination in its place and despite the inappropriate timing it gives Daryl the tiniest thrill of admiring interest. He squeezes Daryl's shoulder, once and hard enough to be uncomfortable, "Be careful, I'll be right behind you," and then a push as he turns to grab his own gun and Daryl is off at a run, warmed by the concern even as dread ties him up in knots over what might be happening with Rick and Shane.

There hasn't been a sound since the gunshot so he can't triangulate with sound and he's having to follow the tracks they've left (which are none too subtle, and that's helpful, but he's going to have to show these people how to hide their tracks someday).

The silence is worrying him, but he pushes the thought aside until he catches them up, forces himself to be useful rather than brooding over his worries. It can't be more than a few minutes since the first shouts, but it feels like too long, and with every silent second it's getting easier to blame himself for the time he'd wasted standing about gazing stupidly at a pretty face rather than acting. He's going to get someone killed because he's undone by an easy smile and a bit of kindness.

They haven't been gone for long and the shot sounded close; he should be on them any minute. He slows down, dropping from a rush to cautious urgency – he'll do Rick no good by walking into an ambush. He keeps moving, quick and quiet, crossbow up and ready, and listens hard.

He can hear movement, decisive enough that it's probably not walkers, a little to his left, past a particularly thick copse of trees that Rick and Shane probably skirted. Daryl grits his teeth and plunges through - though the lost visibility makes his skin crawl and his stomach churn with dread, he might not be able to afford the delay. He keeps tracking the sound of movement, orienting himself against it and hoping that he isn't turning himself around.

He's also listening back, hoping to catch a hint of Glenn or T-Dog or Andrea on his tail – he's finally overcoming a lifetime of mistrust and watching his own back, and he's started to feel off-balance without anyone at his back.

His divided attention is his only excuse for not noticing that the sounds of motion are all wrong. He catches it – too many for just one or two people, most of them being as quiet as possible - but too late. It feels like an ambush and the knowledge is a shot of adrenaline strong as a punch to the guts.

He scrambles to stop before he clears the thicker woods and loses his cover, but momentum carries him out and he stumbles to his knees even as he brings the crossbow up. It's kicked from his hands and he hears guns trained on him, safeties disengaged, looks up into blinding sun, indistinct faces and gun barrels.

"Well, well, well. Fancy seeing you here, little brother."

* * *

><p>So, am I the worst? Ha, trick question, all the answers are variations on "fuck yes, you jerk," and rightly so. I had to re-write this bastard chapter so many times it's a little absurd, but one crash and a memory wipe later, here you are! Unrelated note, there is now accompanying art, because someone out there loves this story as much as I do, and I love them for it, more than words can express. Check it out at makedeathloveme dot livejournal dot com4408 dot html, because it is the best thing, and after the dick move I've just pulled on y'all, the adorable contained therein will probably help.


	12. Chapter 12

Merle is alive. He's alive, well-fed, clean and healthy looking, with a giant knife attached to the stump of his arm (of fucking course he has a giant knife strapped to his stump), staring down at Daryl. Daryl's in danger, guns trained on him, outnumbered, but it is all distant because _his brother is standing in front of him_. Shit-eating grin and all.

Daryl is suddenly and intensely aware of how grimy and under-fed and tired he must look.

He knows that there are other people, standing in a loose circle around him, dark figures blocking out the afternoon sunlight, but he can't look at anyone but his brother.

"Well, you gonna keep gawping at me like an idiot, little brother? Come on, get your ass up out of the dirt," and he offers a hand – left hand, which is jarring, awkward – which Daryl takes. And he's warm and solid and real, rough callused hands same as Daryl remembers and that shakes his stalling mind into motion.

Merle is alive. He's alive, and here, and real (Daryl had been afraid, in the back of his mind, that he'd been imagining it, losing his mind), and he's suddenly weak with relief. His brother is back.

He hauls himself to his feet, grin near splitting his face in two, and hugs his brother, brief and hard enough to bruise. Merle, of course, shoves him back a foot (they've never been hugging men, the Dixons), but he keeps his hand on his brother's shoulder and he's grinning too.

"You're alive! Shit, I told 'em, nothing but Merle can kill Merle, and I was right. Where the hell'd you go, brother? We came back for you and all we found was your fucking hand, you crazy bastard," he says, all in one long breath (Glenn's rubbing off on him, must be, Daryl's never been this talkative).

Merle's eyes go hard for a minute, at the mention of the others, and his smile gets a little thinner, a little meaner. But he answers, and that's good enough. "Oh, I've been all over. Made me some new friends, and everything." He gestures magnanimously with his knife-arm at the others, and Daryl finally pays attention to them.

Four men. They're just the sort of guys Merle ran with before the end of the world, most of them – big, solid guys, a little angry, a little mean, maybe a little too stupid or a little too smart for his own good, not too good at following rules. The kind of guy that had a real hard time with the world-as-it-was, before it ended so abruptly.

Not all of them, though. One of them doesn't belong. He's pretty average looking, really, average height, size, appearance, handsome in an average sort of way; he's dressed like a guy who's mostly unremarkable, carries himself like he's normal, friendly, trustworthy. Approachable.

But there's something about his eyes, when his expression changes. Just for a second there's something else there, behind the friendly-helpful-normal that he's broadcasting.

He's crazier than a shithouse rat – there is something in the back of his eyes, and it's gibbering.

Daryl has a sudden, urgent need for his crossbow. And a knife. And about fifteen miles between him and this man. The desire's strong enough that his fingers twitch for where the bow had fallen in the dirt (where, actually, one of these men had kicked it into the dirt not two minutes ago) but it's gone, taken. A shiver of unease runs through his gut, pooling to nervous energy radiating out to his extremities, tiny tremors of adrenaline shaking his fingers. He wants a weapon, and he wants someone at his back. He feels exposed like this, vulnerable.

That's mostly because he is. He wrestles the feeling down, with an effort. He's alone with these people, he doesn't know where the rest of his group is, he's unarmed, and Merle has always been unpredictable. And that man is bat shit insane. Last thing Daryl needs to be doing is acting like he's afraid; these're the sort of people who'll eat that for breakfast.

"This's my brother, Governor." Merle is talking to crazy-eyes. Who is calling himself governor? That sets the skin between Daryl's shoulder blades crawling with unease, the way it did when he saw his first walker – it's a danger signal, loud and clear, his subconscious yelling and screaming. It's well past time to get away from this man, but Daryl will be damned if he's leaving his brother behind again, over something as small as a _bad feeling_.

"It's Daryl, isn't it?" Crazy-eyes, Governor, whatever, he's talking to Daryl, staring at him. He's got a friendly face on, and it's almost convincing, but Daryl can't un-see the crazy so it's less convincing than it could be. Daryl meets his eyes and the crawling feeling intensifies almost to the point of being painful. Daryl nods, wary, and the man offers a hand to shake. "Good to meet you. Your brother's been talking about you," Daryl hasn't taken his hand yet, just watching him, and the man has noticed. A muscle in his jaw twitches, his expression tightens, and the crazy flashes to the forefront for a second.

Daryl gives in and takes his hand. It isn't the crushing grip he'd expect from Merle's usual crowd, the obvious sort of posturing (I could crush your bones). Even the handshake is firm and honest. He's got good hands, well-formed and capable-looking; they look especially clean next to Daryl's filthy ones, dirt smeared into the creases and under his nails, covered in small nicks and bruises.

"Yeah," Daryl hedges. He doesn't know quite what to do with this man. It's been months since he talked to an outsider peacefully, he's just realized, the farm folks aside, and that's not making it any easier to deal with this alarming bastard. It's made worse by the fact that Daryl doesn't know where any of the rest of his group is, a doubled feeling of vulnerability – he feels exposed, because he doesn't have any one at his back, and he's really concerned about not being able to protect them with these thugs roaming about led by a mad man.

"He also told me you were running with a big group, when you were… separated," he loads the word with a strange emphasis and it makes Daryl angry and defensive. "Still with them?" This is what he was afraid of. He doesn't know what this man wants with them, but he's afraid that it's nothing good.

"Most of 'em are dead. Same night as," he nods his head at Merle. Merle looks at him, suddenly unreadable, and Daryl wants to tell him that they came for him as soon as they could, wants to tell him how glad he is that Merle's alive, how miserable he was not knowing… But not now. "Walkers hit the camp before we got back," _from looking for you_ stays silent but he looks at Merle, steady and significant, and he can see his brother get it. His face goes strange, twitching between satisfaction and regret, and Daryl wonders what's been happening to his brother while they were separated.

He lets his face fall into the old, unfriendly sneer, malicious and mean. It feels strange on his face, awkward and ugly and unfamiliar because he hasn't had to act this way for longer than he's really thought about. But it fits what he needs to look like – contemptuous, superior, a little cold. "The ones that survived split up after that – they were weak 'thout us, brother, it would have been stupid to stay." None of it is a lie, really. A lot of people died, and the Martinez's did split pretty soon afterwards. And they were weak, for a while, before they became a unit, pulled together; it felt like a mistake for him to stay with them, for a long time.

"You mean to tell me you've been on your own since then?" Crazy-eyes is skeptical, understandably, but Daryl is done talking about himself.

"You're awful curious. What's it to you?" If he's been roughing it on his own for months, Daryl figures he gets a pass on politeness, anyhow.

Crazy-eyes flashes a bright, disarming smile and raises his hands placatingly – no harm done, friend, Daryl can almost hear the words in his head – "Fair enough, we can talk later. We've got something of a settlement going, a safe place, and if your brother speaks for you, we could have a place for you there. It might be better than wandering around the woods on your own. We'll let you speak to your brother. Think about it," and he gestures at the other men. They step back, Crazy-eyes still smiling charmingly. If Daryl hadn't seen the crazy, he'd be charmed. (He notices that for all their charm, they're still holding onto his crossbow.)

And. A settlement.

Daryl thinks about staying in one place for more than a few days, thinks about being able to sleep for more than a few hours at a time. Thinks about Lori, getting bigger and slower and tired. He thinks about what it would mean to live the way they do with a baby, and he can't. He thinks about the way Rick has been getting more and more desperate, pinched and tired around the eyes, as days and months tick by and they don't find a safe place to barricade and hunker down, and about what he'd be willing to do to make things a little easier on the man. He thinks about Carl and Sophia being able to be kids for a little longer, rather than the alarmingly practical, amoral creatures that they sometimes show flashes of these days.

He thinks about it, and he realizes that there isn't much he wouldn't do to make that real.

He wonders, quiet and almost guilty, what Glenn might look like if he weren't constantly wound tight in a permanent state of high-alert, how his smile might look if the constant fear overshadowing it could be pushed to the background.

Daryl wonders what it might feel like, to be able to relax enough to learn to trust people.

He wants all of that, more than he knows how to express or control. It's intense and a little frightening, how much he wants it.

"Merle," he starts talking, low and intense, as soon as the others are out of earshot, "who are these guys? Are they for real?"

"Yeah, the place is real alright, nice little town. Calls it Woodbury. There's walls, weapons, patrols. People inside – even kids, old folks. Sometimes they have picnics," he draws the word out with a mocking drawl that makes his feelings on post-apocalyptic picnics all too clear. Merle looks at him consideringly. "You been on your own since we split?"

Daryl grins at him and edges a little closer, speaks a little lower. "Nah. But he don't need to know that just yet." Merle smirks back, and another little piece of clockwork slots into place as he and his brother settle into step. The Dixon brothers stick together, after all. (Well. Mostly. Merle left Daryl behind, once upon a time. But then, Daryl's left Merle behind too, now, so maybe they're something like even, finally.)

"Same group?"

"Yeah," Daryl eyes him. Merle is strangely forgiving, sometimes, about strange things. Though, forgiving is maybe not the right word.

Unpredictable.

He might be able to find a way to fit his people together and keep them all. He doesn't know how, yet, but he'll find a way. He wants this too much not to fight for it. (And what a change that is, from the person he remembers being, who'd sooner spit on a thing he wanted, run it off or ruin it, than reach for it and risk not getting it.)

He takes a long, slow breath and tries to find the right words. "What they did wasn't right. They're sorry for it, and they should be. But we came back for you, brother, I swear; no one meant to leave you there. And," he looks down. Everything he's said is true but what he wants to say next feels somehow, obscurely, like a betrayal. Like it should still just be him-and-Merle, against the world, and having let other people into his life means he's turned his back on Merle. "They're good to me, brother, we watch each other's backs." He swallows hard. "I care," _about them_, "what happens to them, so I gotta know – is this place for real?"

Merle looks at him, laughs a little meanly. "Oh, you soft bastard. You screwing one of them?" Daryl starts, staring at him wide-eyed. He glares, crossing his arms and adopting a belligerent expression, but it's too late. "You are!" Merle crows, victorious. "Took the world ending to get ya there, but my little bro's finally manned up, huh?" Daryl feels heat creeping up his neck and he looks away from his brother, hoping that he's not as transparent as he feels. No such luck, though, Merle keeps right on. "One of those pretty sisters?"

The mention of sisters throws Daryl for a second (Maggie and the crier? How would Merle know about them?) before he realizes that Merle means Amy and Andrea. Because, of course, Merle doesn't know.

Merle doesn't know a whole lot. Well, hell, Merle hasn't known a whole lot about Daryl in years, this is nothing new. Sadness hits him, sudden and hard and unexpected, at the thought of Amy. He barely even knew her, pretty and sweet and shy as hell (though that might have just been around him and Merle), but losing her had nearly killed Andrea, and Daryl wouldn't have wished losing family on anyone with the world the way it is.

"She's dead, Merle, the younger one. Bit."

"Well, that is a shame," and Daryl can hear what strangers would hear, which is callous, lecherous insincerity. He catches a glimpse of real sympathy in the shifting lines around his eyes, but only because he knows to look for it. They do know how to keep their emotions and other assorted weaknesses under wraps, he and Merle. Because, of course, that pansy bullshit isn't for real men, what are you, bro, a little bitch?

Having been away from his family for a while, Daryl is starting to suspect they might have been a bit fucked up. He can't really remember his brother or father ever saying that they loved him, that they were there for him or proud of him; he's certainly never said it to them either. Physical affection came a distant second to aggression. Family was something that you were loyal to, stuck with, because there was no one else out there worth trusting, and no one else who would have your back. That hadn't seemed unusual until he'd started watching the Grimes, the Morales, Carol and Sophia, and realized that families can do more, and be more; can hold each other up, offer support and security and warmth and care, can make you bigger and better and stronger for being a part of them.

It feels too-large and terrifying, as though any misstep could ruin things, not just for him but for these people too. It feels too good to be real, and he's hovering on the edge of it, unsure of his welcome. But evidence is building up, that they want him and care for him as much as he does them – it shows in the smiles and small favours and kindnesses that go unremarked and with no expectation of repayment; the way Rick is starting to look to him for backup and support; the stream of gestures of comfort, reassurance, inclusion. It'll be hard to deny for much longer, that he is as welcome as he wants to be.

The silence has stretched on into awkwardness while he was thinking about what a kinder family might have felt like, and he tries to shake it off. "Merle. I don't want to lose you again," his brother shifts away, and looks deeply uncomfortable, but Daryl presses on – if he stops talking the words will dry up and he's pretty sure they'll never talk like this again if he lets himself give up now. "But I don't want to leave them behind either. Can you deal with them? Is this place ok?" Merle scowls thunderously, looks away, tries to shrug out from Daryl's hand on his shoulder. Daryl holds on and waits.

"Fine. Fine, alright. Don't expect me to make nice, but," he frowns at the ground, but Daryl can see his brother relaxing just a bit; he's pretty sure he's won this one. He grins widely and Merle shoves him. It's none-too-gentle, but it's what's always passed for affection from Merle. "Soft, brother, you're getting soft."

"Whatever," he reaches over and pushes Merle back. While it looks like they're making nice and having a reunion, Daryl edges in closer and ducks his head down, nods sharply to indicate crazy-eyes. "Who is that guy?"

Merle glances at his group who are still waiting nearby, watching the woods for walkers. "Who, good old boss-man? He likes people to call him Governor."

No fucking way. "That's their leader? You can't be serious, Merle, he's crazier than a bag of angel dust."

The title is not a good sign, either, as far as mental stability is concerned.

Merle throws his head back and laughs, loud and obnoxious, drawing attention. Daryl notices that when he starts talking again, though, it's still in a low enough whisper for privacy. "Brother, am I glad you're back. Most of these dumb bastards couldn't catch a clue if I'da dropped it hogtied at their feet. Yeah, there's something wrong with him, don't know what exactly, but he's good at what he does. People listen to him, like him, get all gooey and eager to please." What about Merle, Daryl can't help but wonder – how long has his brother been playing goon and henchman to this… Governor? Has he gone 'gooey and eager to please'?

He looks strange, that's for sure. Daryl had noticed the obvious things first – well-fed, healthy, clean – and assumed that all was mostly well with Merle, but there is something wrong with the way he holds himself, the lines around his eyes settling in different, harder tracks, shoulders held high and tight and defensive. He looks tired, beaten-down, weirdly listless despite the surface appearance of vigour and aggro.

No, Daryl will not be leaving Merle behind here. They're both leaving, or they're both staying.

"Aw, shit, fine. Fine. Can't be worse than the way things're going now, at least," Daryl says, and almost immediately curses himself for a fool. There's no better way to invite trouble than to say something like that. Too late to take it back now, though.

Merle strides back to his people and Daryl trails after him, hunched in on himself, playing up the defensive loner just in case. It's not hard – without the crossbow, and with his gun impossible to get at without drawing attention, he's feeling pretty vulnerable.

Watching the Governor talk to his brother, though it raises his hackles nearly around his ears, gives him a pretty good idea of how to deal with him.

He treats Merle like a dangerous dog – useful when he's properly directed, but a blunt instrument; stupid, expendable. It's the same way he seems to treat the other three, it's probably not unique to Merle but Daryl would like to wring crazy-eyes' neck all the same. It's handy, of course, because he's certainly not going to expect much from Daryl, either, as Merle's brother – he can be the dumb redneck, no threat unless you put a weapon in his hands and point him in the right direction.

So Daryl tries make himself look and act and feel like that kind of man; very competent in certain, specific ways, but small and stupid and suspicious, mean and narrow-eyed, easily manipulated. It leaves him feeling sick and angry, as though his skin is too tight, as though he's stuffing himself into clothes that haven't fit him in years. But he needs to look like easy pickings and watching the way crazy-eyes treats his men, with that sort of familiar barely-there contempt and superiority, he's pretty sure this is the way to do it.

Once crazy-eyes is through questioning Merle about Daryl, he turns his attention to Daryl. It is not hard to hunch up defensively under his regard – there is something that feels just slightly off about this man, and when he is staring straight at Daryl it is harder to ignore the urge to just turn around and head for the hills.

"This town of yours – secure?" Daryl figures he can get away with a certain rude abruptness, given that he's supposed to be a crazy forest-dweller, and he is not above taking advantage of that.

He flashes the charming, self-deprecating smile again, and Daryl can feel himself _wanting_ to be taken in, wanting to believe that this man is what he is pretending to be, but he resists. "Well, I couldn't honestly say that we've seen anywhere really secure since-" he trails off, looks appropriately sober and regretful, and Daryl spends a moment admiring the showmanship of it all. "But, we've worked hard to carve out a little bit of safety, and we work hard to keep it that way. I'd say it's a damn sight better than living on the run, now, wouldn't you Merle?" The modesty, probably false but charming nevertheless, is belied a little by the strange intensity of his stare, as well as the fact that even when he addresses Merle, he never looks away from Daryl.

Merle grunts an affirmative, and the challenging look is back in the Governor's eye – he isn't going to offer again. If Daryl wants to join, he is going to have to admit that he isn't entirely self-sufficient, going to have to ask outright, put himself in the Governor's debt in an obvious, memorable, embarrassing way. He wants it to be entirely clear that Daryl owes him. Daryl is starting to get how he plays his game, and how he has all these otherwise ornery, unmanageable men following him with so little protest. The man is clever as hell, he'll give him that.

He lets his reluctance show, lets pride and fierce independence war with need and the reality that no one can live the way he claims to be living for long. Then he gives in, a faint slump of his shoulders making him look hunched-in and vulnerable and unhappy about it.

"It – yeah, guess you're right. Might be a nice change," he says, hedging, angling for an invitation.

None, as he half-expected, is forthcoming. "Of course, we have to be careful who we let in. I can't tell you how much trouble it would be, to have someone in the community who didn't pull his own weight, didn't listen to orders. A stranger could betray us in so many ways; it's a risk letting anyone new in from the outside. I'm sure you can see the problem I have here, Daryl." He's smiling, the smug bastard. As far as he knows, he has Daryl over a barrel – alone, tired, unarmed – and he fully intends to watch him squirm for a while, beg and plead a little, before he lets up. Bastard.

Even knowing that he isn't actually as helpless as he is pretending to be, it makes him burn with humiliation and anger. His face flushes to red angry splotches, his hands ball into fists in his pockets and it is a real effort of will to keep from glaring. Keeping this act going is beginning to feel like balancing on a knife's edge, which disaster waiting on either side, but he's started now, and he's going to have to see it through. "I can help, though, I can hunt, and trap, and track. I know guns and I'm a good shot with the crossbow," he can't help the way his eyes keep darting to his crossbow, being held inexpertly by one of crazy-eyes' goons. "I can carry my own weight and then some," he says, half-desperate and half-proud, letting the words spill out in a bit of a jumble and then abruptly going stony and silent and glaring, when it's clear that he has essentially thrown himself on this man's mercy and resents it quite a lot.

The governor looks at him, long and slow and considering. Gloating, and Daryl grits his teeth and tries not to let it show on his face that he is willing the man to burst into flames. "Well, you seem very capable," and again he emphasizes the word in such an odd way that despite it being a complimentary statement Daryl can't help but feel insulted. "And your brother has vouched for you. We can always use another able-body, of course. Why don't you come on back to Woodbury, Daryl? I'm sure we can find a use for you somewhere," he says, and doesn't need to say, _and you'll do whatever I tell you to, or you'll be out on your ass and vulnerable without us_. It is perfectly obvious, and every one of the men around him seems to recognize it – Daryl has no doubt, suddenly, that most of these men feel so deeply obligated to crazy eyes that they'll do whatever he tells them almost without question. He must have had most of them like this, once, vulnerable and too weak to go on alone, and he probably never quite lets them forget what they owe him.

He seems to know just how and when to play people, and he is fucking dangerous.

"I – ah- thank you," Daryl says, gruff and clearly uncomfortable and deeply relieved. If he's going to bring up the topic of the rest of his group, now is probably the only time for it. "There's just. Uh. Just one thing, I should tell you," he hedges, thinking desperately for a way to introduce the prospect of ten to seventeen other people (Daryl isn't sure if he is including Randall and the farm folk in his counts, yet). Two guns swing back around to train on him, and he realizes that it sounds like he is about to say he's bit.

He is saved from having to answer by Andrea's inimitable dramatic timing – within seconds of Daryl mentioning 'just one thing,' there she is.

She barges through the same trees that Daryl had, although slowly enough that she keeps her feet firmly planted and her gun in hand. There is a single, shocked moment of inactivity as everyone simply stares at the new addition. They are visibly torn between _threat_ and _beautiful woman_, and Daryl can see her taking full advantage of that moment to appraise the situation herself. She moves, sharp and decisive, before any of the rest of them can – but she moves to _stand between Daryl and the guns pointing at him_ and he is very much not alright with this. His chest clenches once, hard and sharp and it leaves him breathless with alarm.

There she is anyways, legs braced, stance solid, gun trained level and steady at the governor's chest – proving once and for all that whatever leftover crazy she's dealing with notwithstanding, she's got a real tactical streak in her, aiming for the brains rather than the brawn. "Ok, Daryl?" she addresses him, but doesn't turn even slightly away from crazy-eyes.

Crazy-eyes, though, is ignoring her – still focussed exclusively on Daryl, his air of smug complacency (fucking finally) replaced by a long, assessing once-over. Andrea bristles, but otherwise keeps completely focussed. That may yet come to a violent crisis – she hates to be dismissed or overlooked, and she's reacted violently and recklessly to smaller slights than this. "M'fine," he mutters, preoccupied but reassuring, and lays a hand on her shoulder to try to draw her back out of the centre of her own little ball of aggro to at least stand beside him rather than dead ahead. She sets her feet, stands her ground and ignores his request to move, though she doesn't shake him off.

So, when Merle starts laughing, low and getting louder, it's to Andrea in the middle of a Mexican standoff, glaring at crazy-eyes, and Daryl standing too close at her back, hand on her shoulder. He feels the tension in her body ratchet impossibly higher until she's practically vibrating under his hand. "Merle?"

"Miss me, darlin'?" She goes briefly speechless with indignation and Daryl takes the opportunity to pull her back and out of the direct line of fire.

The governor cuts smoothly into the stunned silence. "Is this your, 'just one thing,' then, Dixon?" Once again, despite being perfectly polite on the face of it, there is something about the way that crazy-eyes talks that has Daryl's hackles up around his ears.

But he can still see Lori in his mind's eye, too heavily pregnant to keep running, and Woodbury still seems like the best solution. "Sort of. Uh. When I said that it would have been stupid to stay," and he doesn't see it, but he would be willing to swear he can _feel_ Andrea's eyebrows rising, "I, uh, I implied that I was not that stupid. I was," he says, and is once again saved from further explanation by a second dramatic entrance and, damn, either his timing is really great, or they're actually just waiting in the bushes for his cues. The thought of the latter is almost enough to make him laugh, despite the wildly inappropriate time and place.

This time, though, it's Glenn. Daryl can't help but look over to him, quick and assessing, and he catches the tail end of a similar look from Glenn just as he settles, warm and solid and steady, bare inches from Daryl's other shoulder. He's standing there with a shot gun and a smirk (false bravado, but it does the job) and Daryl very nearly goes weak in the knees. There's something about the lines of his body, smooth and confident, the light flush to his face, his eyes hard and bright and sure, hands steady. Daryl wants to put his hands all over Glenn. He wants to press his mouth to bare skin; he wants to smell him, taste him, he wants- He _wants_.

"I… see," crazy-eyes says, and Daryl has the uncomfortable feeling that maybe he does, in fact, see. More than Daryl really wants him to. Well. There's nothing he can do about it now.

* * *

><p>Guys, my family is really great. I don't know how to write bad familial relationships, figuring out their interactions was like pulling teeth. Angry, armed, resentful teeth that love each other. I don't even know. Also, I couldn't stop picturing the scene in the Hobbit with the dwarves arriving in twos to Beorn's house in the woods, when I started writing people showing up one by one to the showdown in the woods. I kept giggling like a tool, it was very dignified.<p> 


	13. Chapter 13

It all gets a bit messy after Glenn appears. Merle keeps himself carefully neutral – which is more considered and calculating than Daryl has ever known his brother to be before, and it makes him even more curious about what has happened to Merle while they were separated. It's also a little hurtful, that his brother does not immediately and unequivocally take Daryl's side but that's an old familiar ache, and he hadn't really expected otherwise.

Still, the contrast is striking, the way Daryl had felt with his brother and the way he feels now with Glenn and Andrea here. There is no uncertainty, with them, that they will be there if he needs them. He can breathe easier, stand straighter, with them around. He can take up the space he deserves, at least partly because they believe he deserves it. And it means something, something big, that he feels this way now, about them, but didn't before with Merle.

Then there is a disturbance in the undergrowth – Daryl just has enough time to think _for the love of God, no more dramatic entrances_ – and a walker shambles forward towards what must smell like an absolute feast. Everyone edges away from the thing, but no one is willing to break their odd Mexican standoff for long enough to deal with it, and it limps closer with that strange walker hiss.

Andrea heaves a long-suffering sigh.

In a single sharp motion, she pulls a knife from her belt, pivots, twists her waist and plunges the knife into the walker's forehead. The decomposing face freezes in a blank grimace and it drops, lifeless, as she jerks the knife free with a wet, ugly sucking sound. She turns back, knife held loose and ready in one hand, gun pulled back up to face the governor in the other. Daryl almost smiles as their company visibly reassesses her. The enforcers give her a look that is somewhere between respectful and lustful – she is beautiful, though he forgets it sometimes, in the face of her rage and despair.

Daryl looks to the governor, expecting disinterest or calculation, and instead sees the same interest as the others, magnified and sharp. He motions for the others to lower their weapons, magnanimous and friendly and now he is focussed on her, rather than Daryl. More than that, she looks back, and even Daryl can feel the air between them go sharp and electric and he has to actually work at not rolling his eyes. He's well and truly relieved to be away from the centre of attention, fair enough, but really?

He lets a little of the nervous energy out in pacing, ostensibly clearing the area but really because he needs to move – he can be still if it's called for, but he doesn't like it. Energy builds up when he stops moving, fizzing and bubbling under his skin like boiling water, and it boils over if he lets it sit too long. He feels better, less vulnerable, when he's in motion.

"Well," the governor says, "I was just telling your… friend, here, that we could always use more able bodies, though I only expected the one. The more the merrier, though. And you do seem particularly… able," he says. The men behind him exchange leering glances, but he smiles and the hard lines of Andrea's face soften into something frank and appraising. Daryl is almost afraid that if he doesn't step between them they'll stare each other's clothes right off, and he'd really rather not see that, thanks all the same.

"I am," she says, sharp and proud, and leaves it at that.

And that appears to be all anyone is going to say, so Daryl mans up and redirects the conversation to what actually matters. "Right. S'that invitation still open?"

"If you're all as useful as the three of you seem to be, I'd say we have plenty of space," the governor says, but if Daryl knows anything about men like him, he'll be thinking now and they won't be happy thoughts. How many people, all competent and confident rather than isolated and cowed, tied to each other rather than to him, would it take to upset the balance of power, shift it away from him? Not many, Daryl would wager, especially if they're as close and hard and competent as he feels his group becoming. They aren't perfect, there's more tension than you can shake a stick at, but living hard and on the run has forced them to learn each other and trust each other in a few essential ways, and it's more than the governor has with his people. He's not going to be happy to hear about the rest of them, unless he can find some way to break them all up into something more manageable. Then there's Rick, who draws people to him like metal filings to a magnet.

They could be dangerous, not to Woodbury, but to the Governor's hold on it.

"What are you talking about, Daryl?" That's Glenn, and, right, nobody knows what's going on here.

"Homeboy here says they've got a town, fortified," and he watches as the penny drops for Glenn, and then Andrea.

Safety in numbers, people to watch their backs. Walls to hold against the outside world, rather than running and running and running. A chance to settle, maybe even start living, rather than surviving. Somewhere for Lori and that coming baby to be safe. From the look on Glenn's face that's all he's thinking – he practically glows with sudden hope.

Andrea doesn't. He didn't expect it, not from her, but he's obscurely disappointed anyways, like this thing (this thing _he'd found_, he can't help but think) might be the thing to shake her out of the mire of despair and grief and anger. If he knows her at all, she's seeing the dangers as well as the promise. Maybe nothing but. How are they going to trust these strangers, after months of depending on no one but themselves; what will happen to the group dynamic; what will Shane do with all sorts of new people to kowtow to; can they really depend on the safety of the walls or will it be yet another false hope? And what if these are Randall's people? If they are, and they see Randall, they're going to put two and two together sooner or later – he's betrayed this town and they've helped. Worse, if they aren't his old group, then they are still at large, a roving band of murderous, raping psychos in the vicinity and this town presumably unaware.

"Is that right?" Andrea steps to the head of their little group and Daryl falls in behind her, dropping back to offer support at one flank, almost without noticing. He catches Glenn doing the same, leaving them pressed almost shoulder-to-shoulder. Daryl swallows around a sudden feeling of _rightness_, of pressing the one last tiny cog into a complicated bit of machinery and watching it slide like magic into a seamless whole.

He can't see Andrea's face but he can picture the merciless-lawyer look falling into place, like a faceplate descending. They lay into something like a negotiation of terms – what can we do for you, and what can you offer us – and Daryl tunes out the specifics after walls and food and basic, first aid-level medical care and a generator, patrols and protection and shared chores and scavenging and hunting. There's more, things that will matter to other people, but that's what he's looking for, and what he can provide. They've had to do more for less, before, and as far as he's concerned this is a good enough deal as long as he's optimistic enough to believe it is what they say it is.

He risks a quick, sidelong glance at Glenn, not smiling but somehow shining with bright, determined hope (because of this thing _he'd found_ and the moment of pride is overwhelming), and thinks that maybe he can risk that much optimism, just this once.

* * *

><p>Andrea finally brings up the subject of the real number of them, and they send Glenn off to bring the rest of the group, or at least Rick and Herschel to speak for them. Merle stomps over to the governor's side and glares thunderously, affiliating himself again, and not with Daryl. Daryl tries not to think about it but the snub simmers, hot and ugly, under his skin and he really can't stand still while they wait, pacing like a wild thing caged.<p>

Luckily, it looks as though someone else found Rick and Shane while Daryl was falling into trouble, and so when Glenn returns it is with everyone. Randall is hiding so effectively at the back edge of the group that Daryl can't actually tell if they've noticed him.

Things do not, in hindsight, go as badly as they could have gone.

They don't go well, of course, not by any stretch of the imagination. Shane goes for some casual (vicious, murderous) fisticuffs with two of the others, from which Daryl and Rick have to extract him. The governor starts looking really suspicious when he realizes how many people there are, despite Andrea's earlier warning. Merle takes a swing at T, and Daryl has to talk him down. The Governor starts looking really fucking weird when he sees Lori, who is just on the cusp of the waddling stage of her pregnancy, to the point where Rick and Shane both bristle like rabid dogs and Carol and Maggie and Beth all edge in closer in a protective huddle. Rick and the governor size each other up and the contest feels deadly for all that it's intangible.

No one actually shoots at them though, or kidnaps anyone, or attempts to trap them in a building that is about to explode, so as far as Daryl is concerned things are still going better than the last three times they've come up against strangers.

When everyone's done with the collective dick-measuring, Rick and the governor settle in to talk about terms; who can do what for whom, and what is on offer in return. Once again, Daryl is only half-listening (Daryl trusts Rick enough to know that he'll do right by his people, and he's starting to get that as far as Rick is concerned, Daryl is one of his) but he is amused when he notices how similar the things they decide on are to what Andrea pushed for not an hour ago. He watches her listening and waits until she catches his eye, then tilts his own head towards them and quirks an eyebrow, sarcastic and amused. She rolls her eyes and shrugs – _what can you do? -_ but she's smiling and he's more pleased than the little exchange warrants, warmed by the effortless understanding that underlie it.

What he's really interested in is the way people have arranged themselves. Daryl – too used to being on the outside – has become really good at hearing the things people say with their bodies, rather than their voices. His group is an obvious, cohesive whole right now, every fault line (but for the one between Rick and Shane, which is coming to a crisis point, anyone could see it) temporarily buried in the face of an external threat. While the weapons are officially laid down in the spirit of tentative cooperation – Daryl snorts just thinking the words, deeply skeptical – there is nevertheless a sense of violent readiness in the way everyone holds themselves, tight and coiled and positioned protectively around the vulnerable members (Lori and Carol and Sophia and Carl, though Carl bristles at it).

The farm folks, maybe unsurprisingly, have tossed their hats in with Daryl's people. That scene at the farm, along with whatever magic Rick's got of his own, seems to have been enough to build the beginnings of trust and loyalty, and Herschel looks more than ready to back Rick up. They're apart but supportive – Herschel stands at Rick's shoulder in order to listen, and speak for his family if need be but otherwise deferring to Rick.

The governor's people are in a line behind him with their weapons down, barely, and bristling with aggression. There's no obvious cohesion to them even now when they suddenly need it, outnumbered and outgunned, and Daryl can see why the governor looks so wary of Rick. Those men are clean and well-fed and strong, and Daryl has no doubt that even a few of his own underfed, ragged little family of misfit toys could take them out, because they're harder and sharper and practiced, and they know how to really, really work together.

Merle looks angry and uncomfortable and proud, and Daryl both wants and doesn't want to go to him. The comfortable familiarity of 'the Dixon boys against the world' is being weighed in his head against the total wrongness of the idea of crossing the gap between the groups and standing with anyone but his people, and the years of abandonment. He still chokes on a sick, desperate rage when he recalls the jarring transition from Merle-and-Daryl and their father to Daryl and his father and his demons make three.

His people, his new family, who don't want his brother any more than his brother wants them. Despite the fact that it looks like an agreement is being reached, Daryl isn't all that happy, suddenly. He tightens his fists until his short nails bite hard into the calloused flesh of his palms, and it doesn't help at all.

Glenn, suddenly, is standing too close to Daryl to be casual. He reaches over and drops a hand on Daryl's tense forearm but Daryl jerks away and glares, hyperaware of his brother and angry with it. His brother who, when Daryl checks, isn't even looking his way. Almost at once he regrets it, and Glenn's look of hurt confusion does nothing to assuage that, and Daryl feels himself wind another crank tighter, tense and frustrated and angry.

_Lucky or no, things'd have been simpler_ he thinks, miserable and guilty and angry with it, hating himself for the treachery of the thought, _if I'da never found Merle again_.

* * *

><p>I'm not even trying to explain myself anymore. The only promise I'll make you all is that I know where this story is going, and I will someday get you there (although by then it will be so wildly AU that it might be too weird to finish).<p> 


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